IAF to assume Parliament’s chairmanship – MP

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: MP from the Iraqi Accord Front on Tuesday denied recent rumors about accusing some political bodies of attempting to nominate their members to replace parliament’s former Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, according to a statement of the Islamic party. “The parliament’s chairmanship is allocated only to the Iraqi Accord Front according to political agreements reached after the parliamentary elections held in 2005,” Hashem al-Taei told IraqiNews.com. On December 23, the Parliament accepted the resignation presented by Mahmoud al-Mashhadani during an extraordinary session after a heated debate erupted between al-Mashhadani and members of parliamentary committees over the issue of Iraqi Journalist Muntadhar al-Zaydi, who threw a pair of shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush at a Baghdad-based press conference last week. The Sunni Iraqi Accord Front has 38 seats in the 275-member Parliament. It comprises the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), the Iraqi People’s Congress (IPC), in addition to the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC) and the Independent Bloc. SH (S) /SR 1