Iraq president should be Arab – politician

BAGHDAD /Iraqi News A candidate running the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA) list said former premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s call that reserving the presidential post for an Arab Sunni figure was based on the notion that Iraq’s environs are Arab and that the country needs “an extension” of Arab nations. “Any Iraqi is entitled to the presidential post, and since the majority of Iraqis are Arabs then the president should be an Arab. The Kurdish brothers are Iraqis anyway,” Manal Finjan told Iraqi News. She pointed out that all figures seeking the preservation of Iraq’s higher interests should take into account the regional and Arab atmosphere in which Iraq exists. The National Iraqi Alliance, also known as Watani List, is an Iraqi electoral coalition that is contesting the Iraqi legislative election of 2010. The Alliance is mainly composed of Islamist parties. Previously it was known as the United Iraqi Alliance and garnered the majority of votes in the Iraqi elections of December and January 2005. The component parties contested the 2009 provincial elections separately and in August 2009 they announced a new coalition for the 2010 parliamentary election without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party. AmR (S)/SR 1