ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is considering taking Iraqi parliament speaker Haibat al-Halbousi to court over the rejection of its candidate Rebaz Hamlan for a ministerial role during the new cabinet formation, a vote that lasted “seven seconds,” a KDP lawmaker said Sunday. 

The Iraqi parliament on Thursday voted on Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s cabinet. The session saw 14 ministers obtain the vote of confidence while the remaining nine ministries - including defense and interior - were not appointed as disputes broke out among lawmakers. 

The KDP had appointed Hamlan, assistant to Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and former deputy Iraqi finance minister, to become the Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities, and Public Works, but he failed to secure confidence. 

“We within the KDP bloc are currently in discussions regarding what took place in the Iraqi parliament and the failure to pass our minister,” Salwan Akrayi, a member of the KDP bloc in the Iraqi parliament, told The New Region.

“One of our options is to file a complaint against the Speaker of Parliament at the Federal Supreme Court, and to challenge the reading of the name and the vote on Rebaz Hamlan…a process that took only seven seconds, after which the Speaker of Parliament immediately announced that he had not received the required votes,” he added. 

Shakhawan Abdullah, head of the KDP bloc in the federal parliament, told reporters following the Thursday session that Halbousi “has lost impartiality,” asserting that voting on certain ministerial nominations was delayed on purpose.

“If the KDP bloc decides not to resort to the Federal Supreme Court, then we will be compelled under the law to withdraw Rebaz Hamlan from candidacy and nominate another figure,” Akrayi explained.

The coalition of former Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Sunday also criticized the recent cabinet formation talks as “revealing clear imbalances in the distribution of ministerial posts,” after more than 20 lawmakers quit the alliance over unmet expectations.