Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Salim al-Jubouri

Iraq's parliament has managed to elect a speaker:
Salim al-Jubouri, a moderate Sunni Islamist, won the speaker’s post with 194 votes of 272 cast. Joining him as deputy speakers were Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite, who is a member of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, and Aram al-Sheikh Mohammed, a Kurd from the Goran Party.
The Parliament had tried and failed twice before to elect a speaker, so Tuesday’s decision represented something of a breakthrough since it starts the clock for setting up the entire government. The Constitution requires that in two weeks, the speaker must nominate a president. The president then has four weeks to nominate the prime minister. 
An amusing quote from the article: "By custom, a Sunni holds the position of speaker; a Kurd has the presidency, and a Shiite is prime minister."  That "custom" can be at most a decade old, right?  Lebanon has had a similar customary system for much longer, with a Maronite president, Sunni prime minister, and Shi'ite speaker.

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home