Komal says won’t enter parliament, alleges election fraud

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ali Bapir, leader of the Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal), on Saturday announced that his party will not enter the Kurdistan Region parliament, alleging that the election was rigged.

“After confirming and being 100 percent certain, it is clear to us - as well as likely to several other parties, and especially to those who did not participate - that we are even more convinced that this voting process was fabricated and extensively rigged,” Bapir said during a press conference. 

The Komal leader added that the alleged rigging appears to have been committed from outside the Kurdistan Region, but did not put the blame on any party.

The Kurdistan Region held its long-overdue elections on October 20. The preliminary results were a landslide victory for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which garnered nearly twice as many votes as the runner-up Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Komal received a total of 67,410 votes, winning the party an estimated three seats in the legislature.

Bapir said they reject the seats that were “given” to them and will not enter the next parliament.

“This is both a stand to defend the will and freedom of the people of the Kurdistan Region and a warning to the Region’s rulers and authorities: playing with the people's votes and will in this way leads to negative consequences. To stand against this injustice, we felt it necessary to announce that we will not enter a parliament we believe is deeply tainted by fabrication and fraud,” he said.

A day after the Iraqi electoral body, which oversaw the process, announced the preliminary results, multiple parties alleged there was fraud. Komal, along with the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), the People’s Front (Baray Gal), and the National Stance Movement (Halwest) said they would release evidence of wrongdoing at a later date.

Komal is the first party to announce that it will not enter parliament.

The KIU announced on Saturday that it will sit in opposition in the parliament and will not join the cabinet.

Halwest leader Ali Hama Saleh said in a press conference on Tuesday that the elections were manipulated to serve three parties and his party was rejecting the results.

The Iraqi electoral body has denied there were any problems. 

No instances of misconduct or violations occurred while counting ballots, Jumana al-Ghalai, spokesperson for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told Rudaw on Monday, adding that allegations of fraud and vote tampering are routine and “completely unacceptable.”

On election day, more than 120 complaints were reported, including about campaign propaganda at polling stations and voters taking their phones into polling booths, contrary to the rules and raising concerns about coercion.