ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani will set a day from February 2024 to hold the Region's parliamentary elections, the presidency chief of staff told Rudaw on Sunday, but stressed that a final decision on the exact date is yet to be made. Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said in a letter to the Kurdistan Region Presidency last week that it cannot hold the Region’s parliamentary elections on its originally scheduled date of November 18 or simultaneously with Iraqi provincial council elections on December 18, suggesting the polls be held on February 18, 2024 instead. “February 18 might not be suitable for us, this is what the Region’s president believes,” Fawzi Hariri, the chief of staff of the presidency told Rudaw, but confirmed that the poll will be held no later than February. The chief of staff hoped a decision could be made in the upcoming days in regards to setting an exact day for the elections, but stressed that that remains the president’s call. Hariri said that the presidency wants the elections to be held as soon as possible, calling on the political parties to set aside their differences for the sake of “protecting the Region’s entity.” Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court in late May ruled against the Kurdistan Region’s parliament decision to extend its term by an additional year, declaring that the term of the legislature had ended and that the self-extension was unconstitutional. A new parliamentary election was set to be held in October 2022, but disagreements between Kurdish political parties over the existing elections law and the electoral commission prevented the process from being conducted on its scheduled time and pushed the legislature to extend its four-year term for an additional year. With Kurdish lawmakers having failed to reactivate the regional electoral commission before the self-extension and all decisions from the parliament thereafter declared null by the Supreme Court, the IHEC has been tasked with carrying out the poll. In March, prior to the federal court ruling, President Barzani set November 18, 2023 as the date for the parliamentary elections, over a year removed from its originally scheduled date.
