Parliament fails in the first round to elect a president and goes to the second round
Parliament fails in the first round to elect a president and goes to the second round
2026-04-11
Shafaq News – Baghdad
The Iraqi parliament failed on Saturday to elect a president, as no candidate secured the required two-thirds majority in the first round of voting for the position.
Four candidates competed: Nizar Amidi from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Muthanna Amin, an independent candidate, Fuad Hussein, the Kurdistan Democratic Party candidate, and Abdullah Muhammad Al-Ulayawi, also an independent candidate. The first received 208 votes, the second 17 votes, the third 16 votes, and the fourth only two votes out of 252 members of parliament.
Council Speaker Heba al-Halbousi decided to go to the second round because none of the candidates received 220 votes. He said that Amidi and Amin received the highest number of votes, so they will compete for the position, with Fouad Hussein and Abdullah al-Ulayawi being eliminated from the race.
One of the candidates needs a simple majority vote of the attending members of parliament (half + 1) in order to win the presidency in the second round.
Earlier today, Bahaa al-Araji, head of the âReconstruction and Developmentâ bloc, predicted that the parliamentary session dedicated to electing the president would go to a second round, while noting that the coordinating framework had not yet decided on its candidate for the position of prime minister.
Al-Araji told Shafaq News Agency that “the session to elect the President of the Republic is still ongoing and has not ended, and it may go to a second round to elect the President of the Republic,” indicating that “the coordination framework has not yet decided on its candidate for the position of Prime Minister.”
shafaq.com
