This is the second time the electoral body has extended the registration deadline. The cutoff was initially set for July 30 before being pushed by an extra week. The new deadline was set to expire at 3PM Sunday but has now been extended until Monday.
Emad Jamil, head of the commission’s media team, added that the deadline for updating the biometric voter cards and registering new voters has also been extended until Saturday. Elections across Iraq, excluding the provinces of the Kurdistan Region, are scheduled for December 18.
Iraq’s provincial councils were dissolved in 2019, in response to demands by the Tishreen protesters who criticized the system for its failures and for enabling corruption. Provincial elections were last held in 2013, without Kirkuk.
The provincial council elections will not be held in the provinces of the Kurdistan Region, but the polls remain of great significance to Iraq’s Kurds, as Kirkuk’s Kurdish political parties will be seeking a return to power in the historically-disputed city for the first time since 2017.
Calls for presenting a joint Kurdish coalition in Kirkuk have seemingly been unsuccessful with the deadline approaching.
Thirteen of Kirkuk’s Kurdish parties in late July called on all Kurdish parties in the province to unite for a coalition for the upcoming elections, urging them to not “endanger Kirkuk’s future through dispersion and separate blocs.” The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) initially announced their willingness to join the alliance, but on Saturday announced that they will be joining forces with the Kurdistan Communist Party for December’s polls.
Two other Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) and the Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal), on Sunday announced they were forming a separate coalition titled “Torch of Kirkuk” for the provincial elections.
Oil-rich Kirkuk is a multi-ethnic province home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen with a history of tensions between the groups. It was under joint administration before 2014 when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew in the face of the Islamic State (ISIS) group. Iraqi forces retook the province on October 16, 2017 and expelled Kurdish security forces following the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) independence referendum.
Kirkuk has not held provincial council elections since 2005.
Created by the 2005 constitution after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the provincial councils are powerful bodies that hold significant power in the country, including setting the budgets for several sectors such as education, health, and transport.
