Upcoming Iraqi Kurdistan Elections Stir Up Controversy
The presidential elections in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, scheduled for later this year, have hit a snag, with several parties unable to agree on important issues, reports Abdel Hamid Zebari.
The Iraqi Kurdistan Region is preparing to hold a new round of elections in the upcoming summer amid demands to extend the presidential term by another year or two. In recent days, prominent leaders in the main two parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by the region’s Prime Minister Massoud Barzani, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — have visited opposition parties to discuss the readiness of the region to hold presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections.
The opposition announced that the main focus of the visits was to reach unanimity over extending the presidential term for a year or two.
The three parties of the Kurdish opposition — the Movement for Change, the Islamic Group in Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Islamic Union — hold 34 parliamentary seats out of 111. Barzani and Talabani’s parties enjoy the lion’s share with 59 seats, leaving the rest to non-Kurds and minor parties such as the Kurdistan Communist Party, the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party and the Kurdistan Toilers' Party.
The most recent parliamentary and presidential elections for the region were held in the summer of 2009, under the provision that the next elections would be held by the upcoming summer at the latest. Provincial elections, on the other hand, were last held in 2005 on account of conflicts between the authorities and the opposition over the electoral law.
