Iraq unlikely to elect president in first round, Kurdish MP says

Shafaq News– Baghdad

On Tuesday, a Kurdish lawmaker cast doubt on the Iraqi Parliament's ability to elect a president in the first round of voting, citing the large number of candidates.

Speaking to Shafaq News, Ahmed Al-Hajj, a member of the Kurdistan Justice Group, argued that none of the 19 contenders is positioned to secure the required backing from the 329-member parliament in the first round of the session scheduled for Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. local time.

Al-Hajj added that the race would then narrow to two candidates in a second round, one backed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the other by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), noting that political blocs could still resort to the so-called blocking third if neither candidate secures sufficient support. He stressed that the vote falls on the final constitutionally mandated deadline for electing a president and cannot be postponed.

Under Iraq’s post-2003 power-sharing system, the presidency is customarily held by a Kurd. The presidential race narrowed over the weekend after KDP candidate Nozad Hadi withdrew, leaving Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as the party’s sole nominee, while Nizar Amedi remains the only candidate put forward by the PUK.

The constitution requires Parliament to elect a president within 30 days of its first session, with a two-thirds majority (220 votes) needed in the first round and a half plus one (165 votes) in a second round if no candidate prevails. The process moved forward after lawmakers elected Haibet Al-Halbousi as speaker on December 29, 2025.

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