Hemn Hawrami, a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) politburo member and former Deputy Speaker of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament, sat down with The New Region at the sixth Middle East Peace and Security (MEPS) forum in Duhok to discuss his party's landmark achievement in surpassing a one-million-vote goal in Iraq's 2025 parliamentary elections and how they plan to carry forward this momentum in the legislatures in both Baghdad and Erbil.

Iraq held parliamentary elections on November 11. The results displayed a significant victory for the KDP, which secured 27 seats and became the first Iraqi and Kurdish political party in history to surpass one million votes. 

"None of the single political parties can even compete with the KDP," Hawrami asserted, noting that that incumbent Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani's Reconstruction and Development Alliance, which topped the polls and won the most seats, is an amalgamation of multiple political entities as opposed to the unitary KDP.

"I can assure you that there will be no Iraqi government without the Kurds and there will be no Iraqi government without KDP within the Kurdish bloc in the Iraqi government," he continued.

The KDP official also stressed the importance of the new parliament properly implementing the Iraqi Constitution, which Erbil has held a longstanding grievance over the federal government's failure to do.

"There is a constitution. They were not abiding by it," Hawrami said, referring to the previous cabinet.

He also touched on the ongoing process of forming the next Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and assigning ministerial roles, saying that "circumstances have changed" following the KDP's election gains.

The Kurdistan Region held its parliamentary elections in October 2024, with the KDP emerging victorious with 39 seats, followed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) with 23. 

Both parties have since held government formation talks that have significantly slowed down in recent months. The KDP has routinely blamed the PUK for unreasonable demands and for hindering the formation of the Kurdistan Region’s next cabinet. 

Speaking at the aforementioned MEPS summit on Wednesday, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani stated that “it was clear” that the PUK did not want to form the Kurdistan Region’s next government before the Iraqi elections, adding that “they must explain their stance.”