Kurdish Barham Salih Elected Iraqi President

Barham Salih and his wife, Sarbagh, show their ink-stained fingers after casting their votes during the parliamentary election in Sulaimaniyah in May. (Reuters)

Iraqi lawmakers elected on Tuesday veteran Kurdish politician Barham Salih, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, as president.

Salih routed his main rival Fuad Hussein with 219 votes to 22, dealing a blow to Hussein's main backer, former Kurdish regional president Masoud Barzani who was the architect of an ill-fated 2017 independence referendum.

He was among 20 candidates for the post, including one from the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party. The two parties have dominated Kurdish politics for decades.

Under an unofficial agreement dating back to the 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq's presidency is held by a Kurd, while the prime minister is Shiite and the parliament speaker is Sunni.

Iraq held parliamentary elections in May. The new president will have 15 days to task the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc with forming a new government. The prime minister-designate will have 30 days to submit his cabinet to parliament.

Lawmaker Hamid al-Moussawi said the lawmakers were supposed to vote Monday, but delayed the session for nearly 24 hours after the KDP and the PUK were unable to agree on a candidate. The parliament speaker eventually decided to hold a vote among all 20 nominees.

Salih, a 58-year-old moderate, has served both as Iraqi deputy premier and Kurdish prime minister.

He was part of an interim authority put in place by the United States following the 2003 invasion.

He later became deputy prime minister under Nouri al-Maliki then returned to the Kurdish regional capital Erbil in 2009 to become head of the Kurdistan government.