10/31/2024–|Last updated: 10/31/202410:46 p.m. (Mecca time)
The Iraqi Council of Representatives on Thursday evening elected Rep. Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani as president after about a year of vacancy in the position following the termination of Muhammad Al-Halbousi’s membership and his dismissal due to his conviction for “false “.
Al-Mashhadani won 182 votes to 42 votes for his competitor, Salem Al-Issawi, who was competing with him for the presidency of the House of Representatives, and 39 ballots were considered invalid during the voting process, according to the Iraqi news agency. (INA).
Immediately after his election, Al-Mashhadani pledged to work as a cohesive team to legislate laws in Parliament.
For his part, Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani congratulated Al-Mashhadani and stressed that the oversight role of Parliament complements the work of the government.
According to Iraqi political custom, the post of President of the Republic, with limited powers, is assigned to the Kurds, the post of Prime Minister is assigned to the Shiites, while the presidency of the Parliament is assigned to the Sunnis.
Al-Mashhadani is considered one of the influential Sunni figures in Iraqi politics. He participated in the political process after 2003 and was one of the members of the committee responsible for drafting the permanent constitution in 2005. Al-Mashhadani served as speaker of the Iraqi Parliament. from 2006 until his resignation in 2008.
Al-Mashhadani was born in 1948 in Baghdad. He completed his primary, secondary and preparatory education in the town of Al-Kadhimiya, which was the administrative district in which he was born.
Al-Mashhadani graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Baghdad in 1972 and joined the Iraqi army with the rank of lieutenant. He was removed from the Iraqi army because of his opposition to the Iraq-Iran war, which lasted 8 years (1980-1988).
In 2000, Iraqi authorities, during the era of the late President Saddam Hussein, sentenced him to 15 years in prison.