ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Region’s ruling party on Monday announced it will not participate in the Region’s parliamentary elections set for June.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) announced that they would not participate in the Region’s upcoming elections, voicing its repeated concern over the federal supreme court’s rulings regarding the Kurdistan Region.
We consider it in our nation’s interest that our party does not abide by unconstitutional rulings and an imposed system that does not reflect the will of the Kurdistan Region’s people and constitutional institutions, read a statement from the party.
The party further threatened to withdraw from the Iraqi political process if their allies in the State Administration Coalition, which makes up the current Iraqi government, do not uphold their ends of the agreements made during the formation of the cabinet and do not abide by the constitution.
The KDP’s decision comes in light of a February Federal Supreme Court ruling that removed 11 minority quota seats from the Kurdish legislature and further ruled that the Region’s elections be held over four constituencies as opposed to one.
The court’s ruling came as a result of a lawsuit by the PUK and another Christian party in Sulaimani filed against several articles from the Kurdistan Region’s electoral law.
The PUK had previously claimed that the Kurdistan Region’s ruling KDP uses those quota seats for their benefit, increasing their dominance in the parliament. The KDP has on several occasions denied such claims.
Several Christian and Turkmen parties have since announced their boycott of the Region’s upcoming elections.
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, however delay in the court’s rulings in February led to an extra delay of the election date, this time to June 10.
However, with the KDP withdrawing from the elections, a party that has ruled the Region for years, it is unclear if an election will be held on time, therefore jeopardizing the chances of the already late democratic process.
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