IHEC completes preparations for Kurdistan's parliamentary election

Shafaq News/ Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) on Saturday confirmed its readiness for the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan region, slated for early next year.

Commission spokesperson, Emad Jamil, told Shafaq News Agency, "The commission has finalized its preparations and will soon announce a detailed schedule for the elections in Kurdistan."

Jamil highlighted the principal effort of updating the voter registry in the region's provinces. He noted, "Erbil leads in terms of progress, followed by Sulaymaniyah, and then Duhok."

An agreement has been reached between the commission and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hold the parliamentary elections on February 25, 2024.

This comes after Hemin Hawrami, the Deputy Speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, stated on August 28, 2022, the intention to extend the parliament's term, as legislative elections couldn't be conducted as planned in early October.

At a press conference in Erbil, Hawrami expressed his disappointment that all parliamentary blocs failed to proceed with the elections, as initially directed by the Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, due to disagreements on the election law and the reforms to the region's election commission.

On May 30, 2023, Iraq's Federal Supreme Court declared the extension of Kurdistan's fifth parliamentary term, enacted by Law No. 12 of 2022, unconstitutional. The court considered any decisions made by the Kurdistan Parliament after the legal deadline (which ended on November 6, 2022) as void from a constitutional standpoint.

By August 3, 2023, president Barzani issued a decree to hold the sixth parliamentary election in the Kurdistan region on February 25.