Barham Salih elected as new President of Iraq

Barham Ahmed Salih, the veteran Kurdistan politician, has been elected as the new President of Iraq on 2nd October 2018. He received 219 votes and defeated Fuad Hussein, who secured 22 votes. Salih is a former prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government and a former deputy prime minister of the Iraqi federal government. The new president will have 15 days to task the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc with forming a new government. However, President Saleh has named veteran Shia Islamist politician Adel Abdul Mahdi as prime minister-designate & ended months of deadlock. Now, Mr. Mahdi will have to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq following the four-year battle against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which left tens of thousands of homes and business destroyed and displaced more than three million people. Under a de facto power-sharing deal agreed in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Iraq’s presidency is held by a Kurd, while the prime minister is Shia and the speaker of parliament is Sunni.