ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) is prepared to completely support the process of the Kurdistan Region’s long over-due elections, a senior official from the agency told Kurdish authorities on Wednesday.
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Sunday set June 10 as the new date for the Region’s general elections which have been repeatedly delayed due to disputes and legal issues.
Claudio Cordone, the UN’s Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, on Wednesday visited the Kurdistan Region Presidency and met with its Chief of Staff Fawzi Hariri and advisors.
UNAMI is “fully committed” to support Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), which will supervise the Kurdish polls, and the Kurdistan Region authorities in the process,” Cordone said in a post on X.
“UNAMI offered their expertise, full support and coordination with the electoral authorities,” the Kurdistan Region President said in a post on X.
Diplomatic missions have welcomed the new date.
UNAMI “is ready to continue to provide its support as requested,” said on Sunday.
The Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary elections were initially scheduled for October 2022 but were then pushed to November of the following year due to disagreements among political parties over the election law.
After an Iraqi court ruled against the self-extension of the Kurdistan parliament as a result of the delayed elections, the vote was postponed to February 25 of this year, this time under the supervision of the Iraqi electoral commission.
The date of the election was postponed again over a delay in federal court ruling on several articles of the election law. On February 21, the court ruled that the 11 quota seats in the Kurdistan Region’s parliament reserved for ethnic and religious minorities were “unconstitutional,” effectively rejecting the legitimacy of the seats.
