PROFILE - Who is Nizar Amidi, Iraq’s new president?

For nearly two decades, Nizar Mohammed Saeed Amidi worked behind the scenes inside Iraq’s presidential palace, helping navigate constitutional deadlock, political crises and the delicate balance between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq.

On Saturday, the longtime adviser and former environment minister moved from behind the scenes to the top of the Iraqi state, winning parliament’s confidence to become Iraq’s new president.

Amidi, the candidate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, secured 227 votes in the second round of parliamentary voting, defeating rival Muthanna Amin, who received 15 votes.

His rise crowns a political career built less on public rhetoric than on quiet consensus-building.

From presidential palace to presidency

For years, Amidi served as one of Iraq’s key constitutional advisers, working alongside presidents Jalal Talabani, Fuad Masum and Barham Salih between 2005 and 2022.

Inside Baghdad’s Peace Palace, he earned a reputation as a behind-the-scenes troubleshooter, skilled at drafting presidential decrees, managing constitutional crises and building consensus among Iraq’s rival political forces.

The post also gave him rare experience in managing one of Iraq’s most sensitive issues: relations between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq.

Born Feb. 6, 1968, in the town of Amedi in Dohuk province, Amidi studied mechanical engineering at the University of Mosul before beginning a political career that would span Baghdad and the Kurdish Region.

His life and career unfolded between Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad, shaping him into what many Iraqi politicians describe as a cross-regional figure.

Fluent in Arabic and Kurdish, and father of four, Amidi is often seen as a political translator capable of speaking to Iraq’s competing centers of power.

Political heir to Talabani

Amidi began his political career in the office of the secretary-general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan from 1993 to 2003.

He later rose through the party’s ranks, becoming a member of its political bureau and headed its Baghdad office in 2024.

He is widely seen as a political heir to the approach of former President Jalal Talabani, whose emphasis on Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian diversity made him one of the few Kurdish leaders broadly accepted across the country’s political spectrum.

That image appears to have helped Amidi at a time when Iraq’s fractured political system is once again searching for compromise.

From environment minister to head of state

In 2022, Amidi joined Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s government as environment minister.

Though the ministry is often viewed as secondary, he used the post to elevate environmental issues to the level of national security, particularly water scarcity and climate change.

He represented Iraq at major international forums and emerged as one of the most prominent voices defending Iraq’s water rights.

Amidi assumes the presidency at a moment of institutional uncertainty and regional tension, with expectations that he will use his experience and broad network of relationships to reinforce the presidency’s traditional role as a guarantor of national unity.

Parliament elected him after two previous sessions were postponed because of disagreements about the post between Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Under Iraq’s power-sharing system, the presidency is reserved for a Kurdish politician, while the prime minister is a Shiite Arab and the parliament speaker a Sunni Arab.

The Iraqi Constitution requires the president to task the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc with forming a government within 15 days of the president’s election.

*Writing by Tarek Chouiref