SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The legal procedure will be launched to replace the seats that were left empty by the Sadrist’s bloc lawmakers in the Iraqi council of representatives, the speaker of Parliament said on Monday in Jordan.
Speaking in a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart, Abdul-Karim al-Doghmi, al-Halboosi said, “the Sadrist lawmakers will be replaced by the losing candidates with the highest number of votes in their respective constituencies.”
Earlier on Thursday, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the leader of the Sadrist movement urged his party lawmakers to write their resignation papers from the Iraqi Council of Representatives as preparation to dissolve the council and end the country’s political impasse over government formation.
The lawmakers of the Sadrist bloc enthusiastically accepted Sadr’s proposal and signed their resignation papers in Najaf on Friday.
As the papers were done earlier on Sunday Sadr has officially ordered them to submit their paper to the parliament speaker.
Soon after, the speaker of parliament Muhammad al-Halbousi accepted the resignations.
Iraq held its last parliamentary elections in October 2021 which Sadr’s party declared a major winner, increasing the number of seats it holds in parliament to 73.
However, political disagreements among parties have hindered the parliament from electing a president and forming a government.
The Iraqi council of representatives already failed three times to elect a new president since the beginning of the year due to a lack of quorum in the parliament that resulted from the conflict and disagreement between the political parties.
According to the Iraqi political system, the first step is to elect a president so that they can designate a prime minister to form the government.
