Iraqi parliament could not convene to elect new president

BAGHDAD, Feb 7 (KUNA) -- A scheduled session for the Iraqi parliament due today (Monday) was not convened due to lack of the legal quorum and boycott of the session by political blocs.
Official Iraqi News Agency said today's session was turned into a consultative meeting after only 58 MPs out of the total deputies, 329, showed up. A quorum requires attendance of two thirds of the total number of the legislators.
Failure to hold the session was very much expected due to declarations over the past days by a number of parties about the intention to boycott it. Among those were the heavyweight Sadrist movement that has up to 73 seats in the parliament and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, whose member, Hoshyar Zebari, was nominated for the top office. (end) ahh.rk