Iran Press/ Middle East: The deputy leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Nechirvan Barzani on Tuesday won 68 votes from the 81 members present in the 111-seat chamber.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, the bitter rival of the powerful Barzani clan, had called for a boycott of the vote, AFP reported.
Nechirvan Barzani is the second person to hold the office of president, occupied by his uncle from its creation in 2005 until late 2017 when he quit following an independence referendum hotly opposed by Baghdad.
In 1996, five years after the region won autonomy in the face of a brutal campaign of repression by late dictator Saddam Hussein, he became vice prime minister, then head of the government in 1999.
Iraqi Kurdistan was deeply split, with its Sulaimaniyah province remaining under a rival authority run by Talabani's PUK.
When the two camps decided to reunite the region under a unity government in 2006, Barzani was chosen to head it.
Barham Saleh, a senior PUK leader who is today president of Iraq, later took up the post, but the younger Barzani was reinstated in 2012. 104
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