After Months, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani Finally Elected as New Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament

The Iraqi Parliament, which had been without a president for a year, finally elected Mahmoud al-Mashhadani as its new speaker. In a session held on Thursday evening, November 1, al-Mashhadani won in the second round of voting with 153 votes against his rival, Salem Aisawi, who received a total of 93 votes. The election of the new parliament speaker was welcomed by various political figures and factions in Iraq, including Abdul Latif Rashid, the country's president, who described the election as 'an important step towards constitutional law and national sovereignty.' Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni politician, previously served as the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament from 2006 to 2008, and his re-election was made possible with the support of the 'State of Law' coalition, which includes Shia parties and some groups aligned with Iran led by Nouri al-Maliki. The former speaker, Mohammed al-Halbousi, was removed from his position last November, and during this time, the agreement on a new parliament speaker had reached a stalemate. Al-Halbousi was dismissed by a ruling from the Federal Court of Iraq due to his previous action of dismissing a parliament member named Laith al-Dulaimi. Iran-aligned groups in Iraq have repeatedly caused deadlocks in the political process of the country, including the prolonged challenges in determining the prime minister or the parliament speaker. Following the resignation of former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in 2019, the opposition from Iran-aligned groups to various candidates delayed the process of appointing a new prime minister for months, and ultimately, after the visits of Ismail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC, to Iraq, these groups agreed to Mustafa al-Kadhimi's premiership.