Electoral committee moves to Erbil ahead of Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections

ERBIL – The Independent High Electoral Commission announced Friday that the committee overseeing the upcoming Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections will move from Baghdad to Kurdistan Region capital Erbil. This shift comes in response to a request from the Kurdistan Region Presidency.

The long-awaited parliamentary elections are set for Oct. 20, 2024.

In a March 11 letter to the IHEC, the presidency stated, “We suggest that the entire electoral process be completed at the Commission’s headquarters in the Kurdistan Region without division, considering that these elections pertain exclusively to the Region and to facilitate the presence of political party representatives at the Commission’s headquarters.”

Judge Amer Mousa Al-Husseini, head of electoral administration and chairman of the Central Committee overseeing the elections, will lead the relocated committee, which includes technical and administrative staff, section heads, and directors of national office departments. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq is also set to participate.

The IHEC said the move is aimed at “direct field supervision of the operational timeline implementation, supporting and monitoring the work of electoral offices in the governorates of the region, and logistical preparations related to the various aspects of the electoral process.”

This October date marks the fifth attempt to schedule the sixth round of elections in the region, initially set for October 2022 but delayed due to political discord.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a major party, has opposed the election timeline over concerns about minority seat allocation and internal disputes. A proposed February 2024 election date was postponed by legal disputes at Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, and a June 2024 date announced by President Nechirvan Barzani was impeded by a boycott from his own Kurdistan Democratic Party.

On Feb. 21, 2024, after multiple postponements, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court issued a ruling on the contested 1992 election law, setting the number of parliamentary seats at 100 and annulling 11 seats previously allocated by quota for minority candidates, while reorganizing the electoral map into four constituencies aligned with the region’s governorates.

However, the Iraqi Electoral Judiciary Council reinstated five quota seats for minorities within the Kurdistan Parliament, breaking the political deadlock. The Kurdistan Democratic Party then decided to participate following the allocation of five of the 100 seats in the Kurdistan Parliament for minorities.