Ruling party leads parliamentary elections Iraq’s KRG

ERBIL

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has emerged as the leading party in the long-awaited Iraqi Kurdish parliamentary election, securing 809,197 votes, according to preliminary results released by Iraq's electoral commission.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), KDP's historic rival and junior coalition partner in government, currently stands in second place with 408,141 votes, while the largest Kurdish opposition party, New Generation Movement (NGM), trails in third with 290,991 votes. The opposition party made a big leap and reached 15 seats.

The voting process for the sixth parliamentary elections in the region, which had been postponed for around two years and in which over 2.5 million voters had the right to cast ballots, was completed on Oct. 20.

Turnout among registered voters was reported at 72 percent, the commission added during a press conference.

President Nechirvan Barzani, who is also deputy leader of the KDP, welcomed the “victorious” ending of the elections.

In the previous period, 11 seats were allocated to ethnic groups in the 111-seat KRG parliament.

Parliamentary elections, which must be held every four years in the region, were last held on Sept. 30, 2018, and Turkmens and Christians, who are subject to the quota system, sent five and six deputies to the parliament, respectively.

On May 21, the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council decided to allocate a quota of five seats for Turkmens, Christians and Armenians in the assembly.

The distribution of political parties in the KRG parliament, which was reduced by the Iraqi Federal Court to 100 seats, five of which were reserved for ethnic groups, remained in place with certain changes.