More than six years have passed since the last parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region, but the Presidency of the Region decided to extend the life of Parliament for more than two years now, which made the Federal Supreme Court, the highest legislative authority in Iraq, confront it with a decision nullifying this postponement and obliging the Presidency of the Region to set a date to hold the elections postponed four times “without justification,” according to observers.
Earlier Wednesday, the President of the Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, announced that next October 20 will be the new date for the legislative elections for the Kurdistan Parliament, which is the fifth date set for holding the elections, and according to the presidential spokesman, the new date enjoys the consensus of all of the political parties, while the regional parliament elections were scheduled to be held on June 10th.
In this regard, Kurdish politician Hakim Abdul Karim said, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “setting a new date for the Kurdistan Parliament elections does not mean resolving the matter, as nothing is guaranteed with the parties in power, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which has violated all constitutional and legal norms, therefore “It is not guaranteed that the elections will be held on the new date.”
He added, “There is regional pressure from Iran and Turkey, as well as a group of international pressures, led by the United States of America, which led to a new announcement and setting the date for the Kurdistan Parliament elections.”
He points out that “what the Democratic Party did, in terms of boycotting and then returning, are the actions of teenagers. It has identified the reasons for its withdrawal, but those reasons have not been addressed and the Democratic Party has submitted to the fait accompli.”
The last elections for the regional parliament were held in 2018, and were scheduled to take place in November 2022, but political disagreements over the election law, defining electoral districts, and the number of seats for minorities in the region prevented them from being held before the Federal Court resolved the controversy over them. The Presidency of the region issued a Kurdistan has so far held five regional ceremonies to hold the sixth session of the Kurdistan Parliament.
For his part, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Idris Shaaban, explained during an interview with “Al Aalem Al Jadeed” that “the Democratic Party has been in favor of holding elections since the end of the term of the Kurdistan Parliament and did not want to postpone them.”
He confirms, “The postponement in previous times was not because of the Democratic Party, but rather because of other parties, including the National Union, which was not prepared to hold the elections and requested their postponement on more than one occasion.”
He continues, “The recent boycott of the Democratic Party was due to the intervention of the Federal Court and its imposition of a new policy on Kurdistan, including the abolition of the quota for minorities.”
Shaaban added, “After returning the quota seats for the Turkmen, Christians, and Armenian minorities, as well as redistricting the electoral districts in the region’s governorates, and meeting some of the Democratic Party’s conditions, we therefore decided to return and participate in the electoral race.”
He stresses that “the Democratic Party is ready to hold the elections, and as usual, it will be the largest party with the most parliamentary seats, and the voter turnout rate will rise, with the Democratic Party’s return to the electoral race.”
The Kurdistan Democratic Party had announced the start of the necessary preparations to run in the Kurdistan Parliament elections after the region’s presidency set October 20 as the date for conducting the process, noting that it had addressed many of the party’s observations and reservations that led it to announce not participating in the elections earlier.
Meanwhile, Burhan Sheikh Raouf, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, believes, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “the Democratic Party’s justifications for boycotting the elections have ended, and the new date for the elections must be a sacred date because any postponement this time is a violation and transgression of all constitutional values. We will not accept any postponement, whatever the circumstances.”
Sheikh Raouf notes that “the National Union was ready to hold the elections, whether on the old date or the new date, and we will have our say in these elections, and we were against postponement, because it harmed the region’s reputation before the world, and also made Kurdistan lose one of the basic pillars of authority, which is the legislative authority, the regional government operates without supervision.”
The Kurdish opposition parties assert that the parties in power, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party, have been procrastinating on the issue of holding elections in order to perpetuate their authority.
In this regard, Ribwar Muhammad, a member of the New Generation Movement, confirmed, during an interview with Al Aalem Al Jadeed, that “the Democratic Party played a teenager’s game, and began begging for the purpose of postponing the elections and opening registration again for political entities, in order to return to participate in the elections.”
Muhammad explains, “The parties in power are aware of the loss they will suffer in the Kurdistan Parliament elections, due to their miserable failure and the Kurdish citizen’s resentment against them, so they want to prolong the life of the current regional government, to ensure greater theft and corruption.”
He added, “The Kurdistan Democratic Party is accustomed to fraud by adopting the vote of the Kurds of Iran, Syria, and Turkey, and also the presence of a weak commission affiliated with the parties in power in the region, but today, after the Iraqi Commission’s supervision of the Kurdistan elections, and also the presence of the Federal Court as the highest judicial authority that monitors any legal violation, as well as reducing the quota seats and dividing electoral districts. He now fears reducing the number of his seats and reducing his influence, so he is trying to postpone and procrastinate.”
