On Wednesday, the Al-Sadr party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance announced an agreement on naming KDP nominee Reber Ahmed for the Iraqi presidency and Mohammad Jaafar al-Sadr of the Al-Sadr party for the position of Iraq’s prime minister.
Hassan al-Athari, the head of the Al-Sadr bloc, announced the decision in a news conference as well as the establishment of a new parliamentary bloc: the Alliance to Save the Country, following a meeting among the three groups.
Next Saturday, a parliamentary session is expected to convene to elect the country’s president, after which the new president will name a prime minister to form a new government within 15 days.
The alliance consists of al-Sadr’s Sairoon Alliance, which won 73 seats in the 329-member parliament during the October 10 parliamentary elections last year, the Sovereignty Alliance, which is a coalition of Sunni parliamentary groups with 71 seats in parliament, and the KDP, which won 31 seats.
Since the October 10 parliamentary elections last year, Iraq has been unable to form a new government due to differences among the political parties.
