The KDP announced earlier in the day that it would not take part in the Region’s long-overdue polls on June 10, labelling the elections “illegal” and “unconstitutional” following the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court’s ruling to eliminate minority seats quota seats.
Imad Jamil, the head of IHEC’s media team, told Rudaw on Monday that the body still plans to hold the Region’s elections on June 10 - a date set by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani earlier this month.
“The commission’s preparations continue as planned for holding the [Kurdistan] Region’s parliamentary elections,” Jamil said, adding that they have not officially been asked to postpone the vote.
The Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary elections were initially scheduled for October 2022 but were then pushed to November of the following year due to disagreements among political parties over the election law. The vote was supposed to be held by a Kurdish electoral body.
After the Iraqi federal court ruled against the self-extension of the Kurdistan parliament as a result of the delayed elections, the vote was postponed to February 25 of this year, this time under the supervision of IHEC.
The KDP politburo said in a statement on Monday that the ruling by the federal court last month was a continuation of the court’s “unconstitutional rulings against the Kurdistan Region in the past four years,” labeling it “a clear and dangerous violation of the constitution” and an attempt to “return Iraq to a centralized system.”
Several Turkmen and Christian parties have also previously declared that they will not be partaking in the June 10 elections in light of the court's ruling.
The February ruling by the Iraqi Federal Supreme court also divided the Kurdistan Region into four constituencies - Duhok, Erbil, Sulaimani, and Halabja - instead of the single-constituency system adopted in previous elections. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) stronghold Sulaimani is the most populous province and it will have the most seats in the parliament, with 38.
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