{"id":15187,"date":"2018-09-15T15:23:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T15:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15187"},"modified":"2018-09-15T15:23:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T15:23:16","slug":"iraq-parliament-elects-sunni-lawmaker-al-halbousi-as-speaker-breaking-deadlock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15187","title":{"rendered":"Iraq parliament elects Sunni lawmaker Al-Halbousi as speaker, breaking deadlock"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1372471\/middle-east\" readability=\"62\">\n<p>\nSULAIMANIYA, Iraq: Iraqi lawmakers have elected a Sunni Arab as speaker of parliament, the first step in forming a new government four months after national elections.<\/p>\n<p>\nLawmaker Ahmed Al-Asadi says 169 lawmakers voted for Mohammed Al-Halbousi during Saturday&#8217;s session and 89 voted for former defense minister Khalid Al-Obeidi.<\/p>\n<p>\nAl-Halbousi is the former governor of Anbar province and was supported by the pro-Iran bloc inside parliament.<\/p>\n<p>\nBorn in 1981, he will be the youngest speaker of parliament in Iraq&#8217;s history. His two deputies were expected to be chosen later on Saturday.<br \/>During the vote, Halbusi pleaded for &#8220;real reforms&#8221;, particularly after demonstrations last week in the southern oil-rich city of Basra turned deadly as protesters demanded improved public services and railed against corruption.<\/p>\n<p>\nEarly this month, parliament held its first session but failed to proceed with the process of forming a government with two Shiite-led blocs claiming to be the biggest bloc that will be tasked to form the government.<br \/>In Iraq, the speaker of parliament is always Sunni Arab while the prime minister is picked from the country&#8217;s Shiite majority and the president is a Kurd.<br \/>Parliamentary coalitions &#8211;\u00a0which bring together lists of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to form the largest group &#8211;\u00a0must agree on the selection of the three positions.<br \/>Basra has been at the epicentre of protests that broke out in July in the southern province before spreading to other parts of the country.<br \/>Anger in Basra flared earlier this month over a growing health crisis, after more than 30,000 people were hospitalised by pollution in the city&#8217;s water supply.<br \/>Protesters flooded the streets for five days, clashing with security forces and torching the provincial headquarters, the Iranian consulate and the offices of armed groups.<br \/>Twelve demonstrators were killed in the clashes, with rights groups accusing security forces of using excessive force.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SULAIMANIYA, Iraq: Iraqi lawmakers have elected a Sunni Arab as speaker of parliament, the first step in forming a new government four months after national elections. Lawmaker Ahmed Al-Asadi says 169 lawmakers voted for Mohammed Al-Halbousi during Saturday&#8217;s session and 89 voted for former defense minister Khalid Al-Obeidi. Al-Halbousi is the former governor of Anbar&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15187","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\/15187","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=15187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}