The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said in a letter to the Kurdistan Region Presidency, signed on Tuesday but publicised a day later, that it cannot hold the Region’s general poll on its originally scheduled date of November 18 or simultaneously with Iraqi provincial elections on December 18.
It instead proposed February 18 for the vote, saying “technical and procedural” issues kept it from holding the election this year.
Emad Jamil, head of the commission’s media team, told Rudaw on Wednesday before the letter was made public that they were working on a date “that might be so near it will be a surprise.”
The IHEC was tasked with carrying out the poll after Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court in late May ruled that the Kurdistan Parliament’s decision to extend its term by an additional year was unconstitutional. The court’s ruling meant the parliament could not activate the regional election commission so the federal one had to step in.
In March, before the federal court ruling, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani had set November 18, 2023 for parliamentary elections, a year after they were supposed to take place.
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