{"id":15181,"date":"2018-09-15T15:22:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T15:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15181"},"modified":"2018-09-15T15:22:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T15:22:48","slug":"deadlock-broken-as-iraqi-parliament-elects-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15181","title":{"rendered":"Deadlock broken as Iraqi parliament elects speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iraqi legislators have elected a speaker of parliament, paving the way for the formation of a new government after months of uncertainty in the wake of an inconclusive election.<\/p>\n

Mohammed <\/span>al-Halbousi, a Sunni politician and the former governor of Anbar province, won 169 votes in a secret ballot conducted at Saturday’s session of the 329-seat assembly, according to reports.<\/p>\n

Aged 37, he will be the youngest speaker of parliament in Iraq’s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The vote came nearly two weeks after the newly elected assembly’s first meeting, during which legislators failed to pick a speaker and two deputies as they were unable to determine\u00a0which competing bloc had the most parliamentary seats.<\/span><\/p>\n

By custom, Iraq’s parliamentary speaker is a Sunni, the prime\u00a0<\/span>minister is a Shia and the president a Kurd.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

‘A lot can change’<\/span><\/h2>\n

Iraq has been in political limbo since the May 12 ballot, which was marred by allegations of fraud and a low turnout.<\/p>\n

After a vote recount was completed in August, the bloc led by\u00a0populist Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr retained its lead with 54 seats. The Iran-affiliated Fateh alliance, which is led by Hadi al-Ameri, came in second with 48 seats, while incumbent Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s bloc remained in third place, with 42 seats.<\/p>\n

Ahead of \u00a0the parliament’s September 3 meeting, Sadr and Abadi formed an alliance and claimed they had a majority of the seats. However, this was contested by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who allied with Ameri.<\/p>\n

A coalition government needs a majority of parliamentary seats – at least 165.\u00a0The bloc with the most members appoints the prime minister and presides over the formation of the next government.<\/p>\n

The result of Saturday’s vote indicated that t<\/span>he pro-Iran bloc led by Ameri looked positioned to take the lead after the election of Halbusi, whom it backed.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Rob Matheson, reporting from Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, said “Halbusi has received strong support from the Shia contingence within the parliament” but added that “there’s a lot that can change” over the next few days.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is going to be watching very carefully about how the government is gradually going to form, and we’ll have a far clearer picture by the end of this week,” added Matheson.<\/p>\n

Halbusi’s\u00a0<\/span>two deputies were expected to be chosen later on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iraqi legislators have elected a speaker of parliament, paving the way for the formation of a new government after months of uncertainty in the wake of an inconclusive election. Mohammed al-Halbousi, a Sunni politician and the former governor of Anbar province, won 169 votes in a secret ballot conducted at Saturday’s session of the 329-seat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}