Iraqi President elected by deputies numbering less than half of the seats in parliament

The Iraqi House of Representatives elected on Thursday the new President of Iraq, after it finally reached the legal quorum required to hold a session to elect the country’s next president, having previously failed to do so on three different occasions.

Latif Rashid, Iraq’s former water resources minister and former Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official, received the votes of 162 deputies, according to Iraq News Agency (INA), while Barham Salih received 99 votes, and eight votes were declared invalid.

The number of deputies who voted for Latif is less than half of the total seats in the Iraqi Parliament which constitutes of 329 seats. Many seats are currently vacant as the deputies for the Sadrist movement had resigned in mid June.

The party led by the Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had emerged as the victor in the parliamentary elections in October 2021, but the seats it won have not been sufficient for it to form a government.

Following his election to office, Rashid tasked Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, the Coordination Framework’s candidate, with the Iraqi prime minister position and in charge of forming the government.