{"id":8005,"date":"2022-01-10T12:50:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T10:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=8005"},"modified":"2022-01-10T12:50:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T10:50:03","slug":"iraqs-new-parliament-holds-first-session-to-form-new-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/iraqs-new-parliament-holds-first-session-to-form-new-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq’s new parliament holds first session to form new government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly three months after Iraq’s general election, the country\u2019s new parliament held its first session on January 9 marking an important step towards forming a new government.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraq’s new parliament elected Sunni lawmaker Mohammed al-Halbousi as speaker of parliament, Hakim al-Zamili as first deputy speaker, and Shakhwan Abdulla as second deputy speaker, in a session after months of tense negotiations, as the country is close to establishing a new government and have taken important steps toward establishing a new government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaos briefly erupted in the chamber as competing Shiite political blocs all claimed a parliamentary majority. Iraq\u2019s Acting Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashahadani suddenly fell ill and was taken to hospital, forcing the meeting to be briefly adjourned. After the hiatus, parliamentary sessions resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the session, there were heated debates among lawmakers over the number of seats, as Shiite political coalition Fatah and the State of Law coalition submitted a document to the acting speaker stating that their coalition be the largest bloc. However, Moqtada al-Sadr’s party firmly objected to the request and defended their position as the largest bloc in parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Kurdish lawmaker Jamal Kojar said, “The debate between Shi\u2019ite parties over which bloc is the largest in parliament has disrupted the session and forced a brief delay.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The session was attended by 228 members of parliament, who voted for al-Halbousi or al-Mashhadani to become the country\u2019s speaker of the parliament. Al-Halbousi won by an overwhelming majority of 200 votes, while former Speaker al-Mashhadani received 14 votes, and the remaining votes were invalidated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Iraq's<\/a>
Iraq’s new parliament elected Mohammed al-Halbousi as speaker of parliament, Hakim al-Zamili as first deputy speaker, and Shakhwan Abdulla as second deputy speaker, in a session held in Baghdad, January 9, 2022. (Image Credit: Iraqi Parliament Media Office\/Handout via Reuters)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Under Iraq’s power-sharing system, the first deputy must be from the Shiite community and the second must be from the Kurds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Halbousi’s Sunni party came second with 37 seats, and he has the backing of al-Sadr, Kurds, and Sunni groups. Al-Halbousi will be the youngest speaker of parliament in Iraq’s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iraqi Parliament will now elect a president and empower the leader of the largest bloc to form a government as prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To quell sectarian tensions and confrontations between rival parties, a Sunni member of the Iraqi parliament serves as the speaker, while the prime minister is to be selected from the Shiite community and the president to be a Kurd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly three months after Iraq’s general election, the country\u2019s new parliament held its first session on January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[4,356,71],"class_list":["post-8005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-iraq","tag-middle-east","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Iraq-Parliament-Session-2022.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-257","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8010,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8005\/revisions\/8010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}