Lawmakers in Iraq have elected Kurdish politician Abdul Latif Rashid as the country’s new president, paving the way for the formation of a new government and ending a year of deadlock, even as rockets landed near the parliament building.
Rashid replaced fellow Iraqi Kurd Barham Saleh as head of state after the two-round vote in parliament on Thursday, winning more than 160 votes against 99 for Saleh, an assembly official said.
In Iraq’s power-sharing system, the presidency is reserved for Kurdish groups to nominate while the premiership falls under Shia blocs. The speaker of parliament is a Sunni.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said the election of Rashid signals that “this chapter of rivalry has been concluded in the Iraqi parliament,” while noting that forming a government could still be an uphill battle.
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