Iraqi voters show their inked fingers after casting their ballots at a polling station in Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday in the country's early parliamentary election. The electoral commission said it expects to publish preliminary results within 24 hours of the close of polls. Photo: AFP

Iraq's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the parliament speaker's decision to reopen nominations for presidential candidates is unconstitutional.

"There is no constitutional or legal text giving the presidency of the Council of Representatives [parliament speaker]the authority to reopen the door for candidacy for the country's president post," the court said in a statement.

On October 10, 2021, Iraq held the parliamentary election, where Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement emerged as the biggest winner with 73 out of the 329 seats.

On January 9, the Iraqi parliament held its first session, in which the lawmakers reelected Mohammed Al-Halbousi as the speaker. Under the Iraqi constitution, a new president should be elected from the candidates by a two-thirds majority of the parliament after the speaker is chosen.

But on February 7, the Iraqi parliament failed to elect a new president as only 58 lawmakers attended the session, well below the set quorum of two-thirds of the 329-seat chamber. One day later, the parliamentary speaker announced the reopening of registration for presidential candidates.

The Supreme Court noted that the reopening decision might be valid if it was made through the legislative body instead of the speaker.

The parliament announced on February 22 the names of 33 presidential candidates, including incumbent President Barham Salih, running for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kurdistan Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed Khalid, running for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Rizgar Mohammed Amin, former chief judge of the Iraqi Special Tribunal that organized the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Under Iraq's power-sharing system, the president should be an ethnic Kurd, the prime minister a Shia and the parliament speaker a Sunni. Once elected, the new president will ask the largest parliamentary bloc to name a prime minister-designate to form a government within 30 days.

Xinhua