The Iraqi parliament today postponed the appointment of a head of state at the request of the two main Kurdish parties, which asked for more time to reach an agreement on their candidate, the Iraqi news agency INA reported, quoted by Agence France-Presse, writes BTA.
According to the Iraqi power-sharing system, the post of prime minister is held by a Shiite, the speaker of parliament is a Sunni, and the president, who has a mainly ceremonial role, is a Kurd.
According to the INA agency, the speaker of parliament, Haibat al-Haybusi, has received a request from the two main Kurdish parties – The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - to postpone the vote to "give more time" to nominate a candidate.
According to a tacit agreement between these two parties, a member of the PUK is elected president of Iraq, while the president and regional prime minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region are elected by the KDP.
This time, however, the KDP has nominated its own candidate for the post of president of the country, and that is Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.
Once elected, the president will have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, who is expected to be former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.