The letter from deputy speaker Hemin Hawrami stated that the Independent High Electoral and Referendum Commission has been reactivated ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year, head of the commission Handren Mohammed told Rudaw’s Nwenar Fatih.
The commission will follow this instruction “because it was passed [in the parliament] with the votes of 58 parliamentarians and it was published in the official gazette,” said Mohammed.
During a parliamentary session last week to discuss a bill to reactivate the commission, a brawl erupted between lawmakers from the ruling parties after Speaker Rewaz Fayaq, from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), ended the session but her deputy, Hawrami, from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), decided to push the vote through.
According to the KDP, the bill passed with the votes of 58 parliamentarians. The PUK has declared the vote “illegal.”
In her letter, Speaker Fayaq said the commission has not been reactivated because no vote was held. Mohammed accused her of meddling in the affairs of the commission “because the commission is independent of the legislative and executive institutions.” He argued that the speaker’s letter was not supported with any legal decrees, unlike the one from Hawrami.
“Because the commission is independent, it should be the one to make decisions concerning the elections,” he said, noting that the parliament only can intervene if there has been wrongdoing.
The commission’s mandate expired in 2019 and cannot hold an election until it is reactivated. The body is made up of nine commissioners affiliated with the Region’s main political parties. Mohammed is from the KDP. Two members of the commission, who were recently approved by the parliament, are yet to be sworn in in front of the Judicial Council.
The KDP and PUK have had rocky relations for years, recently inflamed by the assassination of a top PUK commander in Erbil last year, arguments over alleged unfair distribution of revenues between the provinces, and disagreements over how the upcoming elections should be held.
Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 18 - a year late. The president will be elected by the new legislature.
KDP and PUK officials have said that they have agreed on all key issues regarding the elections, except for the distribution of minority seats. The Kurdistan Parliament consists of 111 seats, with 11 of them dedicated to minorities under a quota system. Some political parties have claimed that these seats are exploited by the KDP, which is accused of directing security forces to vote for the minority candidates it favours. The KDP has denied the claims.
The head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert on Wednesday described the tensions between KDP and PUK over elections as “very disturbing” and called on all parties to “find common ground.”
