PUK Falls to Third Place In Iraqi Kurdistan Elections
The preliminary electoral results in Iraqi Kurdistan show the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to be the biggest winner, with the new Movement for Change coming in second.
The Iraqi election commission decided to postpone declaring the election results in Iraqi Kurdistan because fraud accusations were made by the oppositionist Movement for Change against its adversaries — the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Kurdistan Region of Iraq President Massoud Barzani.
Despite that, preliminary electoral results pointed to a new political map in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which is trying to present a successful economic model compared to the rest of Iraq.
The preliminary figures cited by the parties, observers and independent organizations were based on polling station counts. The results showed the KDP in first place with 37.4% of the vote, which would give the party about a third of the total seats. Parliament is comprised of 111 seats, in addition to the 11 seats reserved for non-Kurdish minorities, which have traditionally been close to Barzani.
The KDP’s main ally, Talabani’s PUK, slipped to third place with 16.6% of the vote. The Movement for Change came in second place with 24.7%, followed by the Kurdistan Islamic Union with 9.8 %, the Islamic Group with 6.1%, al-Haraka al-Islamiyya with 1.2% and 4.2% for the other parties.
