BAGHDAD (AFP) – A scheduled vote by Iraq’s parliament to elect a new national president was thrown into doubt yesterday after key factions announced boycotts and a frontrunner was suspended by a court.
A cancellation would be the latest chapter of political turmoil in the war-scarred country which, almost four months after a general election, still hasn’t chosen a new prime minister.
The vote for the head of state – a post with a four-year mandate held by convention by a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, and currently occupied by Barham Saleh – was scheduled for noon.
But there was little hope the 329-seat parliament in Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone would be able to clinch the necessary two-thirds quorum to chose a new person for the largely ceremonial post.
