Kurdish Abdelatif Rashid is elected president of Iraq in a parliament harassed by projectiles

Almost twenty years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is still far from being the promised democratic garden.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
13 October 2022 Thursday 15:30
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Kurdish Abdelatif Rashid is elected president of Iraq in a parliament harassed by projectiles

Almost twenty years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is still far from being the promised democratic garden. As proof of this, the country's president had to be elected this Thursday under a hail of projectiles. The resulting delay in the vote is nothing compared to the political paralysis of a year, since the last elections were held.

As further proof of the Iraqi peculiarity, the new president, Abdelatif Rashid, is the brother-in-law of a former president, the historic Jalal Talabani and, as it could not be otherwise, he is Kurdish and a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Rashid, educated in England, had been Minister for Water Resources. Although his position is ceremonial, he is indispensable for the constitution of the new government. Hence, he has not wasted a minute in appointing as interim prime minister the candidate proposed by the most voted bloc -as required by the Constitution- Mohamed Shia al Sudani, from the Coordination Framework.

This formation, well connected with Tehran, is led by Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki and has as its nemesis the other Shiite bloc, headed by Moqtada al Sadr.

Rashid was elected in the second round with 162 votes, out of the 329 seats that make up the Chamber, while the outgoing president, Barham Saleh, from the same party, obtained 99 ballots. At the last moment, the other major Kurdish party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), has withdrawn its candidate to support Rashid. The PDK, strong in Irbil, is the ruling party in Kurdistan, while the PUK, strong in Suleimania, must settle for the presidency of Iraq.

Both formations waged a civil war in the 1990s, in which the KDP even resorted to the military support of Saddam Hussein. Both are, in turn, ruthless enemies of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -whose origins are in Turkey- and compete with it in the rest of the Kurdish-populated territories, particularly in Iran and Syria. In the latter case, the Kurdish branch of the PKK has imposed its hegemony by force, to the detriment of the branches of the PDK and the PUK.

Three previous sessions to elect a president and unblock the formation of the government were unsuccessful, for different reasons. The most critical moment was recorded at the end of the summer, when Al Sadr, whose force received the most votes last October, withdrew his deputies from the Chamber, before occupying it weeks later in a riot with his supporters, whom he had forced out of the House. street. The armed clashes between his hosts and the pro-Iranian militias left at least thirty dead. However, when the specter of another civil war, this time intra-Shiite, was beginning to stir, Al Sadr gave the order to withdraw his own and the chaos in Baghdad dissolved in sixty minutes. Another show of force.

To this day, the reason for the change of mind of the impulsive politician, the son of one of the most respected Shia religious figures in Iraq, is discussed. Some and others agree that he answered a call, but for some, the person behind the receiver was the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah. For others, with more plausibility, it was the Iraqi Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

During the first round of voting, nine projectiles hit the so-called high-security Green Zone. One of them, a short distance from Parliament, where the bulk of the wounded were registered - a total of ten - most of them security agents. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it came as soon as it became known that the candidate for prime minister would be Al Sudani, the same one who had provoked the ire of Moqtada al Sadr in August.

Although al Sadr's reaction remains to be seen in the coming days, it is not ruled out that he will settle for a share of power. The high price of a barrel of oil is, right now, the best balm for the Iraqi elite to once again reach agreements, while the reality of the Iraqi on the street is far from any utopia.

Rashid, a 78-year-old engineer, was an opponent of the Ba'athist regime, spokesman for the PUK in London and an expert at the FAO, before being appointed minister by Nuri al-Maliki. In 2009 he survived an attack on the motorcade in which he was traveling. Until today he himself has served as advisor to the Presidency, being married to a sister of the late Jalal Talabani.

Under the sectarian system established in Iraq after the US invasion, the speaker of parliament must be a Sunni Muslim, the prime minister a Shiite and the head of state a Kurd. After being sworn in, Rashid has pledged to preserve both Iraq's sovereignty and its federal democratic system.

Although the prime minister in pectore still has to form a government and obtain its approval in the next thirty days, his predecessor in office, Mustafa al-Kazemi, a man linked to the intelligence services, is now history.