ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has temporarily suspended the preparations for Kurdistan Region’s elections pending the ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Region’s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani against the division of seats for the constituencies, the body’s spokesperson told Rudaw on Wednesday.
Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled to temporarily suspend working with Article 2 of the candidate registration and approval system for the Kurdistan Region’s elections until a ruling is made on the lawsuit by Barzani. The Article states that the Kurdistan parliament consists of 100 seats, allocating 38 seats for Sulaimani, 34 for Erbil, 25 for Duhok, and three for Halabja.
Barzani had called on the Iraqi top court to deem the Article “unconstitutional” as the division of seats for the constituencies was done based on the number of voters, instead of the number of inhabitants, which contradicts the Iraqi constitution and previous rulings of the Federal Supreme Court. The elimination of the minority seats was also deemed “unconstitutional” by Barzani, saying that it violated principles of fair representation for all of Iraq’s components, as laid out in the constitution.
“Following the ruling of the Federal Supreme Court… the IHEC has decided to suspend all technical and financial operations for the Kurdistan parliament elections until the lawsuit filed at the Federal Supreme Court is settled,” Jumana al-Ghalai, spokesperson for IHEC told Rudaw’s Nahro Mohammed on Wednesday.
The spokesperson added that it was unclear when the court would issue a ruling on the lawsuit.
In February, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruled that the 11 quota seats in the Kurdistan Region’s parliament reserved for ethnic and religious minorities were unconstitutional, effectively eliminating the seats.
The ruling was strongly objected by the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the party announced that it would not be partaking in the upcoming elections in protest. Most Christian and Turkmen political parties joined the KDP in boycotting the elections, demanding the restoration of the quota seats.
The Kurdistan Region is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on June 10, after nearly two years of delays. The announcement from the Iraqi electoral body implies a further delay in the process.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) earlier this month condemned “any unilateral attempts” to postpone the Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary elections, stating that it will not accept any further delay of the polls.
The upcoming elections is set to be unique in the Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary history, with fewer seats in the legislature, a new constituency system, and the poll being administered by the federal commission for the first time due to disagreements between the main Kurdish parties that resulted in a failure to renew the mandate of the regional electoral body as required by law.