Source: Iraqi judiciary weighs two options on presidential vote deadline

Shafaq News– Baghdad

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council is expected to issue a ruling within hours on the constitutional deadline for electing the president while examining two possible constitutional interpretations for calculating the 30-day timeframe required for the vote, a parliamentary source told Shafaq News on Tuesday.

One calculation takes the date parliament elected the second deputy speaker as the starting point. Under this calculation, the presidential election session would be required to take place this Thursday, January 29.

The other calculation excludes official holidays from the constitutional count, including Fridays, Saturdays, and January 1 and 6. Based on this count, the session would be scheduled next week, with Sunday, February 1, currently the closest date.

Earlier today, Parliament Speaker Haibet al-Halbousi received formal requests from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to postpone the parliamentary session scheduled for 11 a.m. on January 27. The Council of Representatives later delayed the session “until further notice.”

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A source told Shafaq News that the Shiite Coordination Framework, parliament’s largest bloc, submitted an official inquiry to Faiq Zaidan, president of the Supreme Judicial Council, regarding the possibility of holding the session at a later date.

Under Iraq’s constitution, parliament must elect a president within one month of its first session, a deadline that expires on January 28.

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