The Iraqi parliament elected Barham Salih the new president by 232 votes yesterday evening. The 58-year-old politician was nominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and won against Fuad Hussein, PDK candidate, who only got 10 votes in the second round after the party had previously announced that he would withdraw his candidacy.

In the first ballot Salih received 165 votes, while Fuad Hussein got 22. Since in the first round none of the candidates had received the necessary 220 votes, a second round was performed.

Since 2005, the presidency in Iraq has been assigned to a Kurd. The office of Prime Minister is occupied by a Shiite and that of the President of Parliament by a Sunni. After the Iraqi parliamentary elections on 12 May, the two Kurdish parties PUK and PDK had agreed on a common approach and appointed a delegation for the talks with Baghdad. Ten days ago, however, the PDK had objected to the nomination of Barham Salih by the PUK. Nechirvan Barzani, acting Prime Minister of the Southern Kurdistan Region, traveled alone to Baghdad without consulting the joint delegation. The PUK criticized this step as a violation of the agreement reached.

Who is Barham Salih?

Barham Salih studied civil engineering at Cardiff University and statistics and computer modeling at the University of Liverpool. He belongs to the leadership circle of the PUK, which he joined in 1976 and represented ten years in the USA. In April 2002, he survived an assassination attempt in his house in Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî). In 1979 he was tortured for 43 days in a prison of the Baath regime. After the local elections in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in 2009, Barham Salih was elected Prime Minister of the regional government in September 2009. Barham Salih resigned as President of the Justice Coalition prior to his nomination for President.