Nizar Amedi elected president of Iraq

Speaker Haybat Al-Halbusi convened a long-promised session to elect the president today, twelve days after committing to do so, amid lingering uncertainty over whether it would proceed. The doubt stemmed from calls by KDP leader Masoud Barzani to postpone the vote until a broader agreement on government positions had been reached. Despite the KDP’s attempt to boycott the session and block quorum, 223 MPs attended, narrowly surpassing the required threshold. As it became clear the session would go ahead, additional MPs joined the vote. The only other bloc to boycott alongside the KDP was Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, which sought to avoid appearing aligned with either side of the Kurdish divide, but ultimately sided with the KDP’s attempt to postpone the vote in solidarity for the KDP backing Maliki’s nomination for the premiership.