Via the AP: Iraq parliament speaker removed

Parliament voted Monday in a closed session to remove the speaker after a series of scandals involving the controversial lawmaker, legislators said. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani will be replaced by another Sunni Arab, they said.

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Al-Mashhadani’s behavior has repeatedly embarrassed the Sunni Arab partners in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition government. Many of the house’s 275 legislators viewed his behavior as unbecoming and, on occasion, erratic.

Three lawmakers said the Iraqi Accordance Front, parliament’s largest Sunni Arab bloc with 44 of the house’s 275 seats, has pledged to offer a replacement for al-Mashhadani within a week. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Al-Mashhadani, a former physician and an Islamist, is a member of the Accordance Front and will retain his seat in parliament, according to the decision. He did not attend Monday’s session, which was chaired by his deputy, Shiite Khaled al-Attiyah.

He sounds like he was quite the smooth politician:

Last year, he barely survived a campaign by Shiite and Kurdish politicians to remove him after he said Iraqis who killed American troops should be celebrated as heroes. Last month, he slapped a fellow Sunni lawmaker in the face and called him “scum” at the end of a raucous session.