Kurdistan’s electoral body to hold trilateral meeting with PM Barzani

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — As elections in Iraq and the deadline to set Kurdistan's election's near, factions within Kurdistan's electoral commission will hold a meeting with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. Kurdistan's election body also decided to depend on ration-card data issued by Iraq's trade ministry in cleaning the Kurdistan Region's voter registry and announced it will need 105 days after the election date is set to prepare.

"...the [Iraqi] ministry of trade will send names of eligible voters through its ration cards. I think the measures taken by Kurdistan's electoral commission are better than those taken by Iraq's which depends on a biometric system," said Vian Sabir, the assistant manager of the KDP election establishment.

"[Kurdistan's] ministry of health has sent names of dead to the commission," Sabir added.

On December 17, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani called on the Kurdish parliament and government to set a date for elections within three months. 

"We, the commission, government and parliament, will hold a trilateral meeting to set a date for elections after Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has returned from the Davos forum," Jutiyar Adil, a member of the electoral commission revealed.

Adil had suggested in early January that more than 100,000 names be removed.

"We will clear the voter registry from repeated names, ghost names or names of the deceased in coordination with the KRG's ministries of health, interior, Peshmerga and justice. Then, we will publish the register to the public and political parties," Adil said.

After a date is set for elections, the commission announced it will need more time to prepare.

"We will need 105 days to make preparations for the process from the day we set a date for the elections," Adil added.

To this effect, the electoral commission has asked for 29 billion Iraqi dinars in order to make complete preparations for the elections. Thus far, the government has deposited 10 billion dinars to the commission's bank account. The rest of the funds will be deposited in two installments in the middle of the process and after it has finished.

- Intra-Kurdish politics - 

The two ruling parties in the Kurdistan Region have different viewpoints on the best timing for their elections; the KDP prefers for the elections to be held before Iraqi elections, but the PUK doesn't.

"The position of the PUK is clear. It neither wants elections to be delayed, nor preceded. We want elections to be held after the legal term of the parliament has ended," said Biriar Rashid, the spokesperson for PUK election establishment.

"We want a clean voter register that ensures fair elections, and cleaning the register is the duty of the commission and government," he added.

According to Law No. 4 issued by the electoral commission in 2014, the nine members of the commission should be independent, but currently belong to five political parties. Some parties want the Iraqi electoral commission to oversee the Kurdistan Region's elections.

"This is contrary to the law issued by the Kurdistan parliament. PUK officials had asked that the Iraqi commission oversee these elections because the commission in Baghdad is controlled by Iran and is in favor of the PUK. They wanted to convince Gorran and Komal of this idea, but they didn't succeed in this. Kurdistan's electoral commission continues its work," said Adil, the electoral commission member.

Rashid responded to the claim: "The PUK has not officially asked for this. We deal with Kurdistan's High Independent Electoral and Referendum Commission. These claims are baseless."

Opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region have blamed the KDP and PUK for not having cleaned the voter registry yet, although both parties have said they support efforts to clean the register of voters.

Karzan Gardi, the head of Gorran's (Change Movement) elections office in Erbil described the commission's efforts as "working well."

"But the government has not yet responded to the commission's letters calling for the removal of repeated and ghost names along with names of the deceased," he added.

According to information obtained from the electoral commission, the data of 6,343 names on the voter registry are not correct. Additionally, full names, and birthdates of 96,258 people on the voter rolls are duplicated. Most of these people are special voters, such as the Peshmerga and police forces who also have their names on the civilian voter registry. Furthermore, 786 names on the rolls are said to be family heads with no family members.

Officials from the opposition Gorran, the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), Islamic Group (Komal), as well as the newly-formed Coalition for Democracy and Justice (CDJ) claim they have data that put the figures much higher.

Sarwar Abdulrahman, who heads the Pay Institute for Education and Development, a monitoring group close to Coalition for Democracy and Justice, has said there are 900,000 fake and repeated names on the voter rolls. Bahzad Zebari, head of the Islamic Union faction in the Kurdistan Region's parliament, has said there are 615,000 fake names on the voter registry. And the head of Komal's election office has said there are 500,000 fake names on the voter registry.

"There are more than 600,000 names on the registry which we think are extra and should therefore be removed," Wuria Ahmed, a member of Gorran's election office, has said.

The KDP faction would like the see the work of the commission finished before a final figure is settled upon.

"It is still premature to speak about the number of repeated names and names of the dead. Parties can criticize and have their say on the final version of the voter register after the commission has finished the process," added Sabir of the KDP.