ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Rewaz Fayaq, speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, said on Monday that Kurdistan’s political parties have resolved all their disputes related to upcoming elections, except for the seats dedicated to minorities in the legislature. The Kurdistan Region Presidency last month set November 18 as the date of parliamentary and presidential elections. The vote is a year late. Lawmakers voted in October to extend the parliament's four-year term by another year because of disagreements over the electoral law and the electoral commission. The parties have been in negotiations to come to an agreement. “There is agreement on most of the points, except one, which is a point of disagreement between the PUK and KDP, minorities and the PUK, and among the minorities themselves,” Fayaq told Rudaw’s Shahyan Tahseen on Monday, referring to her Patriotic Union Party (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The Kurdistan Parliament consists of 111 seats, with 11 of them dedicated to minorities under a quota system. Turkmens have five seats, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syriacs have five, and Armenians one. Some political parties have claimed that these seats are exploited by the KDP, which is accused of directing security forces to vote for the minority candidates it favours. The KDP has denied the claims. The United Nations has reportedly suggested to the PUK and KDP that two minority seats, for Turkmens and Christians, be given to PUK-stronghold Sulaimani province. Muna Kahveci, Fayaq’s second deputy and a Turkmen, criticised the suggestion, saying the matter should be discussed with the minorities rather than the governing parties. According to Fayaq, some minority groups want a separate date for voting to prevent members of security forces from casting a ballot for minority candidates. She said she hopes the parties will reach an agreement and “as the parliament leadership, we will cooperate in this regard.” Fayaq also criticized opposition parties for placing the blame for the election problems solely on the two ruling parties. “The political parties often say that the issue is between the PUK and the KDP, but this is not the case,” she said. Noting that while the KDP and PUK have opposing stances on the electoral law and elections, she said opposition parties, by putting all focus on the two ruling parties, are “legitimising” the idea that critical decisions cannot be made without both PUK and KDP on board. The KDP and PUK have an uneasy relationship. Despite working together in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), they have established control over separate parts of the Region, often referred to as the “Yellow Zone” in Erbil and Duhok where KDP dominates, and the “Green Zone“ where PUK controls Sulaimani and Halabja. The pair are at odds over financial, security, and governance issues and recent incidents, including the crash of two helicopters in Duhok that were carrying Syrian Kurdish forces between PUK’s Sulaimani and northeast Syria (Rojava) through KDP territory without informing the KDP, have escalated tensions between them. Fayaq criticised political parties for throwing around blame while being unwilling to sit down in the Kurdistan Parliament to make compromises and resolve their disputes. “All Kurdistan Region’s political parties are willing to go to Baghdad and hold meetings outside the [Kurdish] parliament,” she said, noting that Kurdish parties are willing to negotiate with Iraqi parties, but refuse to do so among themselves. “There is a sort of dualism,” she added. Fayaq made history as the first female speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament. She said that two of the great achievements of the parliament under her watch were passage of labour and education laws. She also pointed to several disappointments about the performance of the cabinet, including its failure to send a budget law to the parliament, failure to implement the reform law, and failure to submit a security forces retirement law, “despite tens of promises.” Fayaq also noted that the finance and natural resources ministers appeared before the parliament the least, despite high demand. “This cabinet has sent the most ministers [compared to previous ones], but it has protected these two ministers a lot,” she said.
