一 | Baghdad, Oct 14 (UNI) Iraqi lawmakers elected Abdul Latif Rashid as the new president of Iraq, marking a crucial step toward forming a new government for the country, the parliament said.
Rashid received 162 votes in the second round of voting, defeating Barham Salih who gained 99 votes, while eight votes were considered invalid, according to the media office of the parliament on Thursday.
In the first round of voting, none of the 39 presidential candidates garnered two-thirds of the votes of the total 329 parliament members, but Rashid got 156 votes and Salih came in second with 99 votes.
According to the Iraqi constitution, the president-elect needs to gather at least two-thirds of the votes of the 329 parliament members. Failing that, the two candidates with the highest number of votes shall compete with each other in a second round, and the one receiving the majority of votes shall be declared the president of Iraq.
The newly-elected Rashid was later sworn in as the President of Iraq, the fifth president of the country since 2003.
After the parliament session, Rashid tasked Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani with forming a new government as al-Sudani was nominated by the Coordination Framework (CF), the largest parliamentary alliance and an umbrella group of Shiite parliamentary parties.
Al-Sudani, now as the prime minister-designate, will have 30 days to form the new government, according to the constitution.
Abdul Latif Rashid, 78, is a veteran Kurdish politician born in the city of Sulaimaniyah in northeastern Iraq. He worked as Minister for Water Resources from September 2003 to December 2010.
He is an active member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) under the leadership of Jalal Talabani, who became president of Iraq in 2005.
Rashid was formerly a spokesperson for the PUK in Britain, where he received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1968 from Liverpool University, a master's degree in 1972, and a doctorate in Engineering from Manchester University in 1976.
Rashid's election as president came as political tensions have been rising in the past months between the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement, the biggest winner in the parliamentary elections in 2021, and its rivals in the CF alliance.
Al-Sadr demanded to dissolve parliament and hold early elections, but it was rejected by the CF parties, which became the largest bloc after al-Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from the parliament in June.
UNI/XINHUA PRT。
二 | OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma judge on Tuesday exonerated a man who spent 30 years in prison for a 1987 rape and burglary, after post-conviction DNA testing from a rape kit showed he did not commit the crime.Pontotoc County District Judge Steven Kessinger issued a final order that vacates Perry Lott's conviction and permanently dismisses the case. “I have never lost hope that this day would come,” Lott, 61, said in a statement. "I had faith that the truth would prevail, even after 35 long years.“I can finally shut this door and move on with my life.”Lott was released from prison in 2018 after the DNA results first came to light, but only after agreeing to a deal with former District Attorney Paul Smith to modify his sentence. The agreement allowed Lott to leave prison and remain free while his motion to vacate was litigated. At the time, Smith said the DNA evidence did not exclude Lott as a suspect.But earlier this year, the Innocence Project, which helped to free Lott, approached newly elected District Attorney Erik Johnson, who reviewed the case and agreed the conviction should be vacated.“Five years ago, all evidence pointed to his innocence, but he was denied justice,” Innocence Project Senior Staff Attorney Adnan Sultan said in a statement. "We are grateful to District Attorney Erik Johnson for his commitment to righting this wrong.”Oklahoma state law requires a conviction to be vacated in order for a wrongfully convicted person to be able to seek up to $175,000 in compensation from the state.Lott's case occurred around the same time and in the same county as the convictions of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot, whose cases have come under intense scrutiny and have been the subject of numerous books, including John Grisham's “The Innocent Man,” which he produced into a six-part documentary on Netflix. A federal judge ordered Fontenot released, but Ward remains in prison.The books and documentary also feature the high-profile exoneration of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, who both were convicted in the same county for the 1982 killing of Ada waitress Debra Sue Carter. That case featured the same cast of investigators and prosecutors, along with the same jailhouse informant who testified against Ward and Fontenot. Williamson at one point came within days of being executed. Both were later freed.。
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