BAGHDAD,
April 6, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – After delays
and deliberations, members of the transitional Iraqi Parliament
finally made up their mind and elected Wednesday, April 6, Kurdish
leader Jalal Talabani as the country's president, paving the way for
the creation of a new government in the war-torn country by the next
week.
“We
are happy that the first elected president of Iraq is coming from a
community that has been persecuted for years,” Shiite MP Hussein
Shahrastani was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse (AFP).
Outgoing
Sunni president Ghazi Al-Yawar and current Shiite Finance Minister
Adel Abdul Mahdi were also named by the 275-seat Transitional National
Assembly as his vice presidents.
The
three candidates received 227 votes, while 30 ballots were left blank,
according to the Associated Press.
Sunni
Hajem Al-Hassani was elected parliament speaker Sunday, April 3, with
Shahristani and Kurdish politician, Arif Tayfor, as his deputy
speakers.
Following
his election as president, Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), vowed to work on improving security in the country.
Before
the parliament session, Shahrastani said the choice of Talabani
reflected efforts to represent the nation’s diverse ethnic and
religious groups in the new leadership.
“We
agreed on Talabani because of his qualities and patriotic history,”
he was quoted by the AP as saying.
The
Kurdish grouping ranked second in Iraq’s January 30 elections after
the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) which emerged victorious in the
polls.
The
majority of Sunnis did not cast ballot in the polls, citing lack of
transparency and fair play under the US occupation.
The
Association of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni religious authority
in Iraq, championed the call for election boycott.
The
Islamic Party of Iraq, the main Sunni political party, had quit the
election race also over aggravating insecurity.
New
Cabinet
 |
|
Yawer,
left, was named vice president. (Reuters)
|
Following
Talabani's election, a new government is expected to be in place by
next week with Shiite politician Ibrahim Al-Jafaari expected to be
named prime minister by the newly appointed three-man presidency
council, AFP said.
The
presidency council will submit the names of prime minister and his
cabinet to parliament for confirmation by a majority vote. It also has
veto powers over legislative bills.
Iraqi
MP and outgoing foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said an agreement on
the new cabinet to be headed by Jafaari was already stricken between
the Shiite UIA and the Kurdish grouping and it would be approved
“within a few days.”
The
process of forming a new government has been drawn out by sharp
differences between the Shiite alliance and the Kurds over who should
get what cabinet posts.
One
outstanding dispute is leadership of the oil ministry, which the
Shiites and Kurds have tussled over. But even that is expected to be
surmounted.
After
forming the new line-up, the Transitional National Assembly will get
busy writing a permanent constitution.
If
adopted in a referendum later this year, the constitution would form
the legal basis for another general elections to be held by December,
2005.
