ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Federal Supreme Court’s ruling on the Kurdistan Region’s elections was a political decision, the Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister said on Thursday.
“We believe the decision is political,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani told reporters, adding that an official Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) statement would come after complete assessment of the ruling.
The Iraqi Federal Supreme Court on Wednesday met for the twelfth time to discuss a lawsuit filed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) against the Kurdistan Region’s electoral law.
The court ruled to remove 11 minority quota seats from the Kurdish parliament, stating that the addition of those 11 seats to the 100 seat legislative body was “unconstitutional”.
The lawsuit by the PUK and another Christian party in Sulaimani was filed against several articles from the Kurdistan Region’s electoral law, among them Article 36, which allocated 11 quota seats for minority groups such as Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, and Armenians.
The PUK had previously claimed that the Kurdistan Region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) uses those quota seats for their benefit, increasing their dominance in the parliament. The KDP has on several occasions denied such claims.
The KDP politburo on Thursday held a meeting led by party leader Masoud Barzani.
#BREAKING: The KDP considers the Federal Supreme Court’s rulings contrary to the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional rights and the principles of federalism ~ Politburo statement.#TheNewRegion #Iraq pic.twitter.com/9azevhS7K9
— The New Region (@thenewregion) February 22, 2024
“These decisions are contrary to the spirit of the constitution, the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region, the principles of federalism and the principle of separation of powers enshrined in the Iraqi constitution,” the party’s politburo said in a statement following the meeting.
The Kurdistan Region was initially scheduled to hold elections in October 2022, but they were later pushed to November 2023 due to disagreements between the Region’s political parties over the electoral law.
Following a verdict by the court in May 2023 against the Regional parliament’s self-extension of its tenure by one year, the election dates were once again delayed, this time to February 2024, but the electoral process could not be held without a verdict on Wednesday’s case.
The court’s decision in May forbade the former parliament to activate the region’s electoral commission, which led to the Federal commission to step in and lead the elections.
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