Iraq’s parliament delays presidential vote

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament postponed the election of the country’s president on Tuesday to allow Kurdish rivals time to agree on a candidate.

The parliament delayed the session, the official INA press agency reported, without saying whether a new date had been agreed.

The agency reported earlier that speaker Haibat Al-Halbussi received requests from Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to postpone the vote to “allow both parties more time” to reach a deal.

By convention, a Shiite Muslim holds the powerful post of prime minister, the parliament speaker is a Sunni and the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd.

Under a tacit agreement between the two main Kurdish parties, a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, while the president and regional premier of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is selected from the KDP.