Vote counting ends, Samarraie wins speaker post with 154 votes

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The vote counting to elect a speaker ended with Iyad al-Samarraie winning the post with 154 votes, according to a lawmaker on Sunday. “The counting ended and Samarraie garnered 154 votes, winning the speaker post, while contender al-Hiti won only 34 votes,” the deputy told IraqiNews.com news agency. Samarraie, who won the majority of votes today (April 19), was born in 1946 in the city of Samarra, Salah al-Din province. Samarraie is descending from a renowned family. His father used to be the military attaché in an Arab country before receiving a death sentence and was executed in the 1970s. Samarraie was also a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP). He climbed up the partisan ladder in Iraq and was tracked down by the former regime in 1980. He received a death sentence and had to leave Iraq for neighboring Jordan, later to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and then to the United Kingdom (UK), where he re-established the IIP. AmR (P)/SR 1