After a long delay, Iraq has a new president . It represents a significant step forward in the government formation process, and all eyes now turn to the selection of a prime minister, but could the post become more than simply a political afterthought under its new occupant?
On 11 April, the Council of Representatives met in Baghdad and elected Nizar Amidi of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in an occasionally tumultuous session. Under Iraq’s informal power-sharing system, the position is traditionally held by a Kurd , but Amidi is the first from outside Sulaymaniyah.
Born in Duhok governorate in 1968 and educated at the University of Mosul, he is a well-known quantity in Baghdad. He served as secretary for former president and PUK leader Jalal Talabani and then the director of his office between 2005 and 2014. He was also the chief of staff for Presidents Fuad Musam and Barham Salih.
In 2022, current Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani appointed Amidi as Minister of Environment. He spent two years in that position until resigning in 2024 to take up a political position within the PUK that manages relations with political forces in Baghdad.
Despite this resume, his path to the presidency was not easy. Under the 2005 Constitution, the president must be elected by a two-thirds majority of parliament, or 220 votes. Therefore, the session needed at least that as a quorum to take place.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) objected to Amidi and ran its own candidate, current foreign minister Fuad Hussein. In an attempt to prevent a quorum, it declared that it would boycott the session and urged others to do the same. In the end, only a few MPs from Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law joined them.
“The KDP wants the president to be elected through a mechanism that insulates it from interference from the Shia and Sunni blocs,” Shivan Fazil, a doctoral candidate at Boston University, told The New Arab .
“But intra-Kurdish division between the KDP and the PUK has provided the Shia and Sunni blocs - by extension the federal government - opportunity to exert such influence and shrink Kurdish autonomy,” he added.
By the time the session was called to order, more than 250 legislators were present, easily clearing the quorum mark. Supported by a broad range of Shia and Sunni parties, Amidi received 208 votes in the first round of voting.
Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) member Muthanna Amin, who represented the Kurdish opposition, won 17 votes. Without his own party present, Hussein received just 16 votes.
Independent Kurdish outlet Peregraf reported that the PUK met with Hussein before the session and agreed to step aside, but he was unable to reach the KDP leadership by phone to discuss the plan. As a result, he stayed in the race and was left to face an embarrassing loss.
Amidi’s failure to clear the 220-vote threshold forced a second round of voting, which required a simple majority vote. He won 227 votes and was elected.
The presidency is a largely ceremonial position, but there are two clear models for how to handle the job.
On the one hand, there is the activist model, which is embodied by Talabani and Salih. Both had serious international stature and used their position to advocate for Iraq - and often the Kurdish people - on the world stage.
In fact, Salih went on to become the current head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). They were also able to navigate the tricky waters of Iraq’s domestic politics and held firm positions on the political issues of the day.
In contrast, Musam and Latif Rashid were nearly invisible during their terms on both the international and domestic stages. In his pre-presidential life, Musam was an important figure as a co-founder of the PUK, but entered a regrettable dormancy in Baghdad.
A social media joke among Kurds was to portray him as asleep, only waking up to post messages on Facebook commenting on events that had happened months or years earlier.
Rashid was hamstrung from the beginning as a compromise choice when the KDP objected to Salih’s re-election in 2021. Moreover, he lacked the standing or temperament to be a significant figure in Iraqi politics. In many ways, his wife, Shanaz Ibrahim, was far more outspoken on issues that he ever was during his term.
Amidi started his tenure by signalling that he would take inspiration from his mentor, Jalal Talabani. But despite this pledge, Fazil believes that he will find himself more in the inactive model.
“Talabani was able to assert himself and demand concessions owing to his charisma and gravitas. This was always going to be hard to match for his successors,” he said.
“Amidi does not enjoy unanimous endorsement, and he does not have the heft to mediate political tensions between the Shia blocs or between Baghdad and Erbil,” he explained to TNA .
Even for the most active presidents, there are limits to what can be done from a constitutional perspective. The position is largely ceremonial, with the premiership endowed with the most power in Iraq’s political system .
Nevertheless, the presidency has constitutional powers to originate legislation. For example, Salih introduced the Yazidi Female Survivors’ Law into parliament in 2019. It was eventually passed in 2021. However, this power is rarely used.
Theoretically, Amidi could use the presidency as a bully pulpit to advance a moral position on things like restitution for Anfal victims and implementation of the Yazidi Female Survivors’ Law.
As a former environment minister, he could also take up advocacy of this cross-border portfolio and attempt to make progress on management of the Mesopotamian basin, which has been hit by damming and climate change.
Given his past as a backroom operator in Baghdad, there could be space for him to quietly shepherd key legislation like the sorely lacking national oil and gas law or spearhead strategic initiatives like diversifying Iraq's oil export routes, expanding renewables, and increasing the private sector.
But the prospects for him to rise to the moment seem dim, and Iraqi politics is resistant to progressive and proactive figures.
“I do not think he will be able to change the status quo. He is an establishment figure and will tread carefully to avoid steering tensions and will likely avoid asserting himself,” Fazil said.
“Even if he chooses to propose legislation, it will not be the sort of groundbreaking laws to tackle corruption or financial reform,” he added.
Amidi’s job will also prove difficult because he lacks the support of the KDP, the largest party in the Kurdish bloc.
Following the presidential election, the KDP issued a statement on 12 April that: “We reject that manner of election, and we do not recognise anyone designated in that manner as a representative of the Kurdistan majority and will not deal with them.”
It then recalled its MPs to the Kurdistan Region for consultations and declared that it would boycott sessions of the Council of Representatives for the foreseeable future.
“There will be cooperation in Erbil because there is no cooperation in Baghdad,” said Fazil. “The Kurdistan Parliament will remain in recess. There will be no Kurdistan Regional Government formation anytime soon.” Winthrop Rodgers is a journalist and analyst based in Sulaymaniyah in Iraq's Kurdistan Region. He focuses on politics, human rights, and political economy Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @wrodgers2 Edited by Charlie Hoyle