Iraq
A Kurdish man wearing traditional Kurdish clothes and waving the flag of Kurdistan while showing off his index finger marked with indelible ink signifying that he cast his vote in Iraq's provincial election on December 18, 2023. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish parties performed well in the disputed provinces of Nineveh and Kirkuk in Iraq’s first provincial elections in a decade, according to Tuesday’s results, but official figures for the number of seats are yet to be released. The vote marks an important juncture, but the path for Kurdish influence remains unclear.
According to preliminary results from 94 percent of the votes announced by the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the New Generation Movement (NGM), and the Kirkuk Torch alliance of the Kurdistan Islamic Party (KIU) and Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal), garnered over 40 percent of the votes combined in the disputed province of Kirkuk.
The PUK leads the polls in Kirkuk by 139,373, making it the party with the most votes, KDP won 46,479 votes, while NGM, and Kirkuk Torch alliance collected 24,620 and 6655 votes respectively.
Kirkuk province recorded the highest turnout across all the provinces with 66 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, numbering over 566,000 votes.
The vote comes almost six years following the events of October 16, 2017 which saw Kurdish forces retreat from the city with little to no resistance in the face of the Iraqi army and the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
Despite a victory at the ballot box, this does still not guarantee the Kurds with the task of electing a governor; neither does it ensure that the position would be filled by a Kurd.
The number of seats won by the Kurds in Kirkuk is yet to be announced by Iraq’s electoral body.
In Nineveh, the PUK entered the elections under the umbrella of the Nineveh People Union Alliance, while the KDP entered seperately.
The KDP came second in the province as its votes amounted to 127,938 while the PUK gained 45,939 votes.
Nineveh, which is one of Iraq’s multi-ethnic provinces and the home of the Yazidi community, recorded a 52 percent turnout at the polls.
In Diyala, which recorded an underwhelming turnout of only 40 percent, the PUK went ahead of the KDP as it got 23715 votes, and the latter garnered only 6804 votes. The Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party, which is a small Kurdish party headquartered near Halabja, gathered a total of only 397 votes.
The modest votes collected by the Kurdish parties in Diyala placed them at the lower ranks of the elections.
In Salahaddin province both the PUK and the KDP fielded a candidate each, under the umbrellas of the Jamahir Party and the National Decisiveness Alliance, respectively.
While the IHEC announced the results of the votes in the provincial elections, it is yet to announce the seats won by the parties and alliances in the councils of their respective provinces.
A total of 6,599,668 ballots were cast across Iraq during Saturday’s early vote and Monday’s general elections, accounting for a 41 percent turnout.
The councils were dissolved in 2019 in response to demands by Tishreen protesters who criticized the system for its failures and for enabling corruption. After several delays, the election date was set for December 18.
Iraq's long-anticipated provincial elections took place in 15 provinces, excluding the Kurdistan Region. The last provincial council elections took place in 2013, without Kirkuk.
The provincial councils were created by the 2005 Iraqi constitution following the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime. They hold significant power, including setting budgets for several key sectors such as education, health, and transport, but are accused of being rife with corruption.
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