Iraq gets Kurdish president

2005-04-06 12:58

Baghdad - The Iraqi parliament chose Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the country's new interim president on Wednesday, reaching out to the nation's long-repressed Kurdish minority and bringing the country closer to its first democratically elected government in 50 years.

Ousted members of the country's former regime - including toppled leader Saddam Hussein - were allowed to watch the event on televisions in their prison cells, Iraqi officials said.

Shiite Adel Abdul-Mahdi and interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, were also chosen as Talabani's two vice-presidents. After weeks of negotiations, the three candidates received 227 votes. Thirty ballots were left blank.

The announcement drew applause, and many lawmakers crowded around Talabani to congratulate him.

Before the session began, Hussain al-Shahristani of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance said Talabani - a Kurdish leader who has spent a lifetime as a political activist - reflected efforts to represent all of the nation's diverse ethnic and religious groups.

"We agreed on Talabani because of his qualities and patriotic history," he said. Later he added that Talabani would be sworn in on Thursday.

The Kurdish-led coalition in parliament won 75 of the 275 seats in parliament in the January 30 elections. Kurds make up 20% of the country's 26 million people; Shiites make up 60% and the Sunni Arabs are roughly 15 to 20%.

- AP