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14-04-2026
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament has elected Nizar Amedi as the country’s new president, ending a political deadlock that had paralyzed government formation.
Amedi was nominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and secured 227 votes in a second round of voting on Saturday, comfortably defeating independent candidate Muthanna Amin Nader, who received 15 votes.
He becomes the sixth Iraqi head of state since the removal of Saddam Hussein in a US-led invasion in 2003.
Speaking to parliament after the vote, Amedi acknowledged the weight of what lies ahead. “I am fully aware of the scale of challenges facing our country,” he said, pledging to work alongside all three branches of government, and committing to the principle of “Iraq First”.
He also condemned attacks that had targeted Iraq during the US-Israel war on Iran.
The election comes as Iraq is still absorbing the shockwaves of the weeks long US-Israel war on Iran, which was halted with a ceasefire announced earlier this week.
Iran-backed armed groups operating in Iraq launched attacks on bases and diplomatic facilities used by the US, while US and Israeli strikes targeting the armed groups killed members of the Iraqi military.
Attention now turns sharply to the choice of prime minister, a far more consequential and politically explosive question.
Under Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system introduced after Washington’s 2003 invasion, the prime minister must be a Shia Muslim, the parliamentary speaker a Sunni, and the president a Kurd.
The Coordination Framework, a grouping of Iran-aligned Shia parties that holds a parliamentary majority, announced in January that it would nominate former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the role.
United States President Donald Trump responded by threatening to withdraw US support for Iraq if al-Maliki was designated to form a government.
Under the constitution, Amedi now has 15 days to formally task the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc with forming a cabinet, which must then be assembled within 30 days.
Amedi, 58, is a career public servant who spent decades at the heart of Iraqi political life, previously serving as a senior aide to two former presidents and as environment minister between 2022 and 2024. Iraq has gone almost 150 days without a new government since the November elections.
In January, last year, the alliance of Shi’ite political blocs that holds a majority in Iraq’s parliament has picked former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as its nominee for the post.
The move paves the way for negotiations aimed at forming a new government, which will need to navigate the delicate balance between US and Iranian influence.
The new government must manage dozens of armed groups that are closer to Iran and answerable more to their own leaders than to the state, while facing growing pressure from Washington to dismantle those militias.
Under the Iraqi constitution, parliament elected a speaker and two deputies on December 29 at its opening session, and must then choose a new president within 30 days. The president will in turn task the largest parliamentary bloc with forming a government. The Shi’ite political alliance, the Coordination Framework, said in a statement that Maliki was picked “based on his political and administrative experience and his role in managing the state”. Maliki, a senior figure in the Shi’ite Islamist Dawa Party, previously served two terms as Iraq’s prime minister from 2006 to 2014, a period marked by sectarian violence, a power struggle with Sunni and Kurdish rivals, and growing tensions with the US. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
