Iraqi parliament on Sunday held the first session in its fifth legislative term, signaling important progress in forming a new government. A total of 325 newly elected lawmakers out of the parliament"s 329-seat attended the session which was held in the afternoon under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, the eldest member of the parliament, who called on the lawmakers to take the oath of office. According to the Iraqi constitution, the parliament should elect in its first session its speaker, then his first deputy and second deputy, by an absolute majority of the total number of the lawmakers through direct secret ballot. The parliament, then, should elect the president from the candidates by a two-thirds majority of its members, and according to the power-sharing system in Iraq, the president should be reserved for the Kurds, the speaker for the Sunnis and the prime minister for the Shiites. The new president will ask the largest alliance to name a prime minister-designate to form a government within 30 days. The Iraqi parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for 2022, were held on Oct. 10, 2021 in response to months of protests against corruption, poor governance, and a lack of public services. — Agencies