The Iraqi Parliament has chosen Nizar Amedi, a former environment minister, as the new president of the country in a voting session in Baghdad. Amedi secured 227 votes in the runoff, leading to his official announcement as the winner by Parliament Speaker Haibet al-Halbousi. The president-elect then took the constitutional oath after the announcement.
The voting session, which saw the attendance of around 250 lawmakers out of the 329-seat parliament, surpassed the required quorum of 220 members for the presidential election. Amedi, representing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), emerged as the top candidate in the first round with 208 votes, while his competitors Muthanna Amin and Fuad Hussein received 17 and 16 votes respectively.
Following the initial ballot where no candidate obtained a two-thirds majority, a second round was conducted between Amedi and Amin. Amedi, who previously served as the Iraqi environment minister and as an adviser to former presidents, now has the responsibility to nominate the leader of the largest parliamentary bloc as the prime minister-designate within 15 days. The nominee will then have 30 days to form a new cabinet and seek a confidence vote.
Iraq’s recent parliamentary elections marked the end of a prolonged political impasse. The election of the new president faced delays due to disagreements among major Kurdish parties and the failure to meet the required two-thirds parliamentary quorum in previous attempts. As per Iraq’s power-sharing system post-2003, the presidency is designated for a Kurd, the parliamentary speaker for a Sunni, and the prime minister for a Shiite.
