Iraqi Kurdistan asks election commission to oversee its parliamentary polls

Region’s elections are set to be held on November 8

A man waves a Kurdish flag outside the UN offices in Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. AFP

Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani has officially asked the country’s election commission to supervise the region's parliamentary polls, slated for November 8, his office said on Wednesday.

Deep differences between the region’s two influential political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, delayed the elections which were supposed to be held last year.

The most recent election for the region’s 111-seat parliament and president was held in 2018.

To avoid a political vacuum, the regional parliament extended its term by an additional year in October 2022. In late May, the legislative body reactivated the region’s electoral commission to oversee the elections.

But a few days later, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruled that the extension was unconstitutional and that all decisions taken afterwards were null and void.

Mr Barzani's office suggested that the region's elections be held either on the agreed date, or simultaneously with Iraq’s provincial council elections slated for December 18.

For decades, the political scene in the region has been dominated by the two rival parties.

In the mid-1990s, when Saddam Hussein lost power in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, the PUK and KDP ignited a Kurdish civil war that killed and displaced swathes of the population. In 1998, the two sides stopped fighting after signing a US-brokered deal.

After the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Hussein and paved the way for recognition of the region in the 2005 constitution, the two parties entered a power-sharing deal.

The KDP held 45 seats in the now-dissolved parliament, trailed by the PUK with 21.