ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) said it will remain in opposition and decline a role in government formation amid allegations of election irregularities.
“We have made our decision, we will not participate, our route is opposition,” KIU spokesperson Khalil Ibrahim told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman about his party’s position on forming the next government.
He expressed hope that the government will be formed promptly and confirmed that his party will join the parliament.
KIU won seven seats in last month’s parliamentary election. It is one of several parties that has criticized the vote as rigged. In protest, the Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal), which took three seats, has said it will not enter the parliament.
Ibrahim said that they respect Komal’s decision and that they are also unhappy with the election process.
“We have many comments, doubts, and questions about those results… and about all sorts of violations that happened before the elections,” he said, adding that they have formed a team to follow up on the outcome of their complaints.
The People’s Front (Baray Gal) and the National Stance Movement (Halwest) have also made allegations of fraud.
Judge Omar Ahmed, head of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), after releasing the final election results on Wednesday, said that experts and party representatives had tested selected voting devices at random and that the claims of fraud “are all baseless talk.”
Ibrahim said that regardless of the challenges, “We see ourselves as winners,” because the number of their votes have increased.
The polls saw a voter turnout of 72 percent, with over two million people across the Region casting their votes, according to IHEC.
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Wednesday called on political parties to move past “the environment of elections” to form the next Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The next government can only be formed through a coalition due to no party securing a majority.
After the 2018 elections, the government formation process dragged on for more than a year due to disputes over the distribution of positions. At that time, KIU announced it would sit in opposition. The party had previously entered a power-sharing government.
