Baghdad, Oct 12 (IANS): Iraq's Parliament has decided to hold a session on Thursday dedicated to electing the next President of the country.
On Tuesday, Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi announced the decision in a press release after a regular session, noting that the agenda for Thursday's session would only include the election of the President, reports Xinhua news agency.
According to the power-sharing system in Iraq after 2003, the presidency should be reserved for the Kurds, the Speaker's post for the Sunnis, and the Prime Minister's post for the Shias.
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So far, disagreement persists between the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, over the position of the President.
On Monday, Muhsen al-Mandalawi, first deputy of Parliament Speaker, said in a statement that some 170 lawmakers submitted a request to hold a session on Wednesday dedicated to electing the next president of the country, in an attempt to end the political deadlock a year after the October 10 elections last year.
Political tensions in Iraq have escalated in the past months between the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Sadrist Movement, the biggest winner in the October parliamentary elections in 2021, and his rivals in the Shia parliamentary parties in the Coordination Framework (CF).
Al-Sadr demanded in the past weeks to dissolve Parliament and hold early elections, but his demands were rejected by the CF parties which became the largest bloc after al-Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from Parliament in June.
Over the past months, persistent disputes between the Shia parties have hampered the formation of a new government, which requires a two-thirds majority of the 329-seat Parliament under the Iraqi constitution.