BAGHDAD: Iraqi lawmakers have broken their deadlock and elected a new speaker of Parliament — the first step toward forming a new government.

The legislature chose moderate Sunni lawmaker Salim Al-Jubouri as Iraq’s new speaker on Tuesday with 194 votes Tuesday winning an absolute majority of votes from deputies. in the 328-seat Parliament, state television reported.

It was unclear whether Al-Jubouri’s election indicated that a larger agreement had been struck among political blocs for the posts of president and prime minister.

Under an informal agreement that took hold after the 2003 US-led invasion, the speaker’s chair goes to a Sunni, the presidency to a Kurd and the prime minister’s post to a Shiite. The position of speaker is the first of the three leadership posts, three months after a parliamentary election.

Parliament is under pressure to move quickly to fill all three posts and form a new government that can confront the militants who have overrun much of northern and western Iraq.

Live television footage broadcast from inside the parliamentary chamber showed Jabouri being congratulated by other lawmakers.

The other two posts are the presidency and the prime minister. There was no immediate indication whether the agreement on Jabouri as speaker was part of a wider deal to break the deadlock over Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s ambitions for a third term.