Rockets hit her today Baghdad Green Belt, as a result of which ten people were injured, at the moment when the Parliament was meeting to elect the new President of the Republic and to get the country out of the deep political impasse and successive violent episodes.
As 277 of the 329 MPs came to the seats of the Parliament, the required quorum was reached and it became possible to conduct the first vote, which was won by a margin of 78-year-old former minister Abdel Latif Rashid. But no candidate gathered the 220 votes needed to elect the President from the first round. A new round will follow with the top two candidates.
At the same time, a sign of ongoing tensions in a country with deep political polarization, nine Katyusha rockets fell into the Green Zone, where Parliament, other government buildings and many embassies are located. According to an AFP correspondent, one of the missiles fell near the Parliament and several explosions were heard.
So far no organization has claimed responsibility.
Ten people were injured, six of whom are members of the security forces or bodyguards of parliamentarians, according to a img close to the security services. Four civilians were injured by a rocket that fell in a neighboring district.
“Such attacks undermine democracythey trap it Iraq in an endless cycle of violence,” commented US Ambassador to Baghdad Alina L. Romanovsky.
After the elections on October 10, 2021, the parties failed to agree among themselves on who will assume the presidency of the country, nor was a new prime minister appointed. The UN mission in Iraq warned on Monday that the protracted crisis is fueling instability.
Parliament three times this year unsuccessfully attempted to elect a president, an honorary position that, by tradition, is always held by a representative of the Kurdish minority. Usually the president comes from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (UPK) while the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) has the primary say in managing the affairs of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. But the PDK was now also vying for the presidency.
Outgoing president Barham Saleh, the UPK’s official candidate, is running for re-election, but at the last minute Rashid, the party’s historic leader, also ran. The PDK (31 MPs) withdrew its own candidate, Rebar Ahmed, and announced its support for Rashid.
The new president will be tasked with appointing the prime minister and starting the difficult negotiations to form a government. For the post of prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, 52, a former minister and candidate of the Cooperation Framework, the largest party in parliament, is considered to be the favorite for the post. “But in Iraqi politics everything can change until the last moment“, commented political scientist Hamzeh Haddad.
In the summer, the candidacy of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani “set fire” to Iraq and caused tensions between the Cooperation Framework and the Sadrist Current. Supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr camped for months around the parliament building. But the Cooperation Framework did not back down. This coalition, which includes the former paramilitaries of the Hasd al-Shaabi movement and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki – a historical opponent of Sadr – wants to form a government. Today it is the biggest force in the Parliament, after the unexpected departure of the 73 MPs of the Socialist Current.
Moqtada Sadr demands the dissolution of parliament and the calling of new elections.
Source: News Beast

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