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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| New speaker for Iraq parliament | New speaker for Iraq parliament |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Members of Iraq's parliament have elected a new speaker, ending months of dispute about who should fill the post. | Members of Iraq's parliament have elected a new speaker, ending months of dispute about who should fill the post. |
| Ayad al-Samarai, who is from the main Sunni Arab alliance, won 153 of 232 votes cast, and promised to work for national unity. | Ayad al-Samarai, who is from the main Sunni Arab alliance, won 153 of 232 votes cast, and promised to work for national unity. |
| Politicians had agreed to reserve the position of speaker for a Sunni Arab, but Mr Samarai had failed to win a big enough majority in a previous vote. | Politicians had agreed to reserve the position of speaker for a Sunni Arab, but Mr Samarai had failed to win a big enough majority in a previous vote. |
| Parliament has been without a speaker since last December. | Parliament has been without a speaker since last December. |
| The previous holder of the post, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, stepped down following criticism of his abrasive style. | The previous holder of the post, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, stepped down following criticism of his abrasive style. |
| New hope | |
| After the vote that approved him as the new speaker, Mr Samarai said Iraq's parliament needed a "process of reform" that would allow competing parliamentary blocs to work together more productively. | |
| "The process of [parliamentary] oversight is not a means of weakening the executive authority but of strengthening it," the AFP news agency reported him as saying. | |
| Correspondents say his selection opens the way for parliament to deal with crucial reforms that have been on hold since Mr Mashhadani stepped down. | |
| "Today we finished a complicated problem which has lasted for months and thank God has been settled in this democratic manner," the acting speaker, Khalid al-Attiya, told Reuters news agency. | |
| "And we hope that the new era for the elected president [of parliament] will be full of achievements in order to allow parliament to rise to its responsibilities," he said. |