Consul-Generals urge Iranians in Kurdistan Region to vote in elections

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Iranian diplomatic mission in the Kurdistan Region on Thursday urged Iranian citizens in the Region to vote while Kurdish opposition parties in Iran call for the boycott of elections, and said good ties with the Region remain no matter the election results.

“We have really good ties with the Kurdistan Region, in different fields, whether in culture, politics anything,” Iran’s Consul-General in Sulaimani, Mahdi Shushtari told Rudaw on Thursday. He added that whichever candidate wins, their “neighboring policy” with the Kurdistan Region continues.

Iran's Consul General in Erbil, Nasrollah Rashnoudi, called on citizens who can participate in the elections in the Kurdistan Region to vote.

“We are calling on those who have the right to participate and perform their legitimate duty, to go cast ballots and vote for their preferred candidates,” Rashnoudi said.

Iran’s presidential and city council elections will take place on June 18 to elect a successor to President Hassan Rouhani, who has served the maximum two consecutive four-year terms allowed by the constitution.

Parliamentary elections in February 2020 saw an all-time low turnout of only 43 percent and turnout for the vote this week is expected to be even lower. Activists and civilians have launched a boycott campaign on social media that is attracting a lot of support, despite threats of prosecution.

Kurdish opposition parties in Iran on Wednesday renewed calls for a boycott of Iranian elections, and stated the wider public opposition in Iran against presidential elections has grown this year. 

A boycott of the election has overshadowed Iran’s presidential elections. Abdullah Mohtadi, the leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), said the opposition among the Iranian public was unlike anything he had seen before in the last 42 years, since the Iranian revolution overthrew the Pahlavi Dynasty and replaced it with the Islamic Republic, ruled by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

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Iran and the Kurdistan Region enjoy good economic relations, sharing several border crossings. A large number of Iranian companies work in the Kurdistan Region’s various sectors.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in April visited Erbil and spoke about the "broadening of economic and trade relations between Iraq and Kurdistan Region and Iran as well as trade movement on their borders” with the president of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani. 

The economy crumbled under outgoing President Hassan Rouhani after Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and began imposing harsh sanctions, and the global coronavirus pandemic hit. Rouhani was a reformist and people who believed that voting for him could fix some of Iran’s problems no longer hold the same hope.

A surge of Iranians and Kurdsh citizens in Iran have left for the Kurdistan Region in search of work due to the economic decline that has gripped the country.

 

Additional reporting by Arkan Ali