Council of Representatives Elected New Speaker
The winner is Dr. Iyad al-Samarrai. Congratulations.
Iraqi lawmakers on Sunday elected Iyad al-Samarrai, a Muslim brother and prominent Sunni politician, as speaker of parliament after the position remained unfilled for nearly four months.Samarrai, the head of the parliamentary delegation of the National Concord Front, the country's largest Sunni bloc, was elected by a majority of 153 votes in the 275-member assembly to the office which is reserved for a Sunni Arab.
His sole opponent, Mustafa al-Hiti, received 34 votes, and 45 ballot papers were left blank. Only 232 MPs participated in the secret ballot, according to a parliamentary official.
Parliament has been trying to fill the post for the past four months, but no candidate had secured the required majority of 138 votes, including Samarrai, who fell just two votes short in a vote in February.
The Shiite deputy head of parliament Khalid al-Attiya, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, congratulated the new speaker.
"The election today was held in a democratic atmosphere, and we hope there will be cooperation between the elected speaker and the presidential committee to move legislation forward," Attiya said.