Since the mid-2000s, the presidency is primarily a symbolic office, as the position does not possess significant power within the country according to the constitution adopted in October 2005.

Due to the Muhasasah political system informally adopted since the creation of the new Iraqi federal state, the office is expected to be held by a Kurd (all were from the PUK party).

[2] According to Article 73 of the Iraqi Constitution, the powers of the president are: The Iraqi constitution, in Article 68, specifies a number of conditions that a candidate for the presidential office must: In the early days of the Iraqi Republic in 1958, neither the head of the Sovereign Council, Muhammad Najib al-Rubaie, nor the Prime Minister, Abdul Karim Qassem, took any palace to be an official republican palace for the state.

With Abd al-Salam's accession to power in 1963, he focused his attention on the palace that was being built during the reign of King Faisal II and in which he was to marry later.

After the revolution of 14 July 1958, elections were scheduled to be held to choose a President of the Republic, but they never took place.