The Speaker of the Iraqi House of Representatives, Muhammad al-Halbousi, revealed on Tuesday evening that 33 candidates, including two, had been accepted for the first Iraqi sovereign office. The election session for the President of the Republic will take place on Thursday.
The incumbent president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Barham Saleh, and the candidate of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Riber Ahmed, who also serves as the interior minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, are two of the most famous rivals.
While the names of other candidates such as two candidates to settle the last minute between the two main Kurdish parties competing for the position, such as Latif Rashid, who is the former Iraqi Minister of Water Resources, and Adil and the late Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, but his personal candidacy and not a mandate from his party, and also highlights the name Candidate Razkar Mohamed Amin served as a judge during Saddam Hussein’s trial.
After 2003, it became customary in Iraq for the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis to hold the positions of Prime Minister, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and President of Iraq.
Less than 24 hours before the presidential election session, the positions of the two Kurdish parties (Democrat and National Union) point to a repeat of the 2018 election, when they engaged in a bitter contest for the presidency of the Republic, which was won by the candidate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at the time, Barham Saleh, at the expense of the Kurdistan Democrat Fouad Hussein, who was then in charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
He did not rule out other scenario analyses, such as the session’s insufficient quorum or the last-minute news of its date postponement.
Harim Kamal, a member of the Iraqi parliament, stated in an interview with “Sky News Arabia” that there has yet to be a Kurdish political agreement on a single candidate for the position, despite efforts by the state administration coalition to persuade the Kurds to put this disagreement behind them and support a joint candidate in order to avoid a rift that could delay the implementation of the constitutional benefits for a year.
”The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is his candidate is President Barham Saleh, and in return for the Kurdistan Democratic, he adheres to his candidate, and there are no waves on the horizon on the horizon, which often means that the 2018 scenario will be repeated. Since 2006, the three successful presidents of the Republic have all been from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Al-Talabani, after a fierce race against the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s candidate, Fouad Hussein, who currently holds the office of Iraqi Foreign Minister, succeeded Fouad Masum in the leadership position of his party in 2014. Masum was succeeded as president by Barham Saleh in 2018.
33 candidates for the presidency of Iraq .. Is the situation from 2018 repeated?
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