PM Barzani: Setting date for Kurdish elections needs consultation with political parties

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The authorities in the Kurdistan Region have failed to set a date for Kurdish elections following a high-level meeting between Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and his Deputy Qubad Talabani, along with the parliament and the election body.

"Today the parliament, the [election] commission, and the government — the three of us — held a meeting discussing the date of the election. To this date [including] this meeting, the date has not been set," PM Barzani told reporters on Wednesday following the meeting.

"This needs consultation with the political parties following this meeting to set the date of the election in the Kurdistan Region," he added.

The heads of the political factions within the parliament also took part in the meeting.

The Kurdish general elections will now most likely be held after the Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for May 12.

The election body previously announced they will require 105 days to prepare for Kurdistan's elections after the date is set.

Shirwan Zirar, the spokesperson for the election body, previously has told Rudaw that they are proposing three dates for the elections: July 6, September 6, and November 6.

The current term for the parliament ends in September.

Barzani said that holding the elections is not a big challenge, but some technical issues remain unresolved.

Barzani and Talabani held a series of meetings with almost all Kurdish parties including Gorran before issuing a letter to the Kurdish parliament in December 17 that demanded the legislature to set a date for the elections within three months.

All Kurdish parties agree that the voter record should be cleaned from duplicate names or that of the deceased, but they disagree on the mechanism or the scale of such irregularities.

Kurdistan's largest opposition party, Gorran, among others have said that they are ready for the election be held "on time," but also warned of lack of confidence in the results of the elections if the voter list remain filled with such names.

Barzani has said on more than an occasion that his government is ready to help the election body to prepare for the elections including the cleaning of the voter roll by providing data compiled by various KRG offices such as the health department.

Following the fallout of the events in Kirkuk in October that saw the fall of the oil-rich province to the Iraqi forces after the Kurdish vote on independence, the Kurdish parliament passed a motion that extended their term for eight months, thus postponing the parliamentary and presidential elections set for November 1 of last year.

The Kurdistan Region last held the parliament elections in 2013, and presidential elections in 2009.