The National Assembly of Iraq held a meeting on the 13th and elected Abdul Latif Rashid, the former minister of water resources, as the new president. In the first round of voting in the National Assembly, no one obtained more than two thirds of the votes of all the members of parliament needed to be directly elected as president. Rashid, the two candidates belonging to the Kurdistan Patriotic Union, and Balkham Saleh, the current president, received the highest number of votes and entered the next round of voting. In the second round of voting, Rashid obtained 162 votes among 269 members participating in the voting, Saleh obtained 99 votes, and Rashid was elected president. Rashid was then sworn in as President and nominated Mohamed Shia Sudani, the former Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, as Prime Minister designate, to form a new government. Rashid was born in 1944 in Sulaymaniyah Province, Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq. He was once the Minister of Water Resources and has been the senior adviser of the President since 2010. The new Iraqi National Assembly held its first meeting on January 9. The Constitution of Iraq stipulates that the parliament shall elect a new president within 30 days after the first meeting. The new president then appoints the person who is promoted by the largest party group of the parliament to elect a new prime minister and nominate a cabinet candidate within 30 days. The presidential election was postponed several times due to the serious differences between the main Shiite political factions and the Kurdish camp. (Liu Xinshe)