By Mufid Abdulla:

Fuad Masum, new president of Iraq

In this year’s Iraq parliamentary elections, the PUK won 21 seats and this kept them in a position to take the post of presidency of Iraq, like last time. We don’t know exactly why the PUK did well in the elections to the Iraqi parliament but not to the Kurdistan parliament and I believe we need to do more study on this subject. Over the last several months of PUK internal struggle, according to my soundings, most party members and probably a majority of the Kurdish public favoured the presidency going to the PUK’s second deputy leader, Barham Salih.