Kurds Expected to Sweep Mosul Provincial Council Polls

MOSUL, Iraq – Kurdish groups are contesting Thursday’s provincial council elections in Mosul under a single banner, expecting to win the majority of the 39 seats on offer.

Three of those seats are reserved for the Shabak and Yezidi minority groups, but the 28 Kurdish groups competing for the remaining 36 places expect a sweeping victory.

Yusuf Zebari, deputy president of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) branch in Mosul, told Rudaw that in these elections 1,000,827 voters would vote for 685 candidates in 715 different polling stations.

In addition, 45 special polling stations will be available on the outskirts of the city where members of the security forces can cast their votes.

Officials say there are more than 750,000 eligible voters in Mosul’s disputed regions, which are claimed both by the autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north and the Arab central government in Baghdad.

They say the breakdown of eligible voters is: 442,000 in Shangal, Zumar, Rabia and  Tal Afar; 100,000 in Makhmour, Sheikhan, Bashiq, Bartala, Khorsubad and Qaraqush; around 100,000 in Telkif, Makhmour and Fayda; about d 120,000 in Domiz.

These voters will be casting their ballots at the 90 polling stations located in the disputed regions.

According to political observers, the Coalition of Brotherhood and Coexistence, also known as the Kurdish List, is expected to win the largest number of votes. Next in line is the List of al-Mutahidoon (The United), with the United Mosul List and the Wafa List expected to respectively get third and fourth place.

“The Kurdish populations in the disputed regions are going to participate in the elections for nationalistic reasons,” said Ismat Rajab, co-leader of the Kurdish List.

“This is an indication of how heated the election race will be in Mosul.”

Rajab also said that the Kurds are expected to win around 12 seats.

According to Sheikh Muhiddin Mizuri, spokesman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Mosul, the Kurds will win around 13 seats. He predicts The United list, led by Aseel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Mosul and brother of Iraq’s parliament speaker, is expected to win five seats.

Mizuri said that the Wafa List, led by former Mosul governor Ghanim Baso, is expected to win four seats and Dildar Zebari, leader of the Development and Justice List, should get two seats.  Zebari expects his own list to win four seats.