Kurdistan Parliament elections: Nearly 2.9M voters set to cast ballots on October 20
Shafaq News/ Nearly two million and 900 thousand voters will participate in the Kurdistan Parliament elections on the 20th of October.
Hazem Al-Rudaini, head of the Expertise Alliance for Democratic Governance, stated, “The total number of voters who have reached the age of eighteen is 3,798,360. Meanwhile, the number of biometric registered voters is 2,899,578, distributed as follows: 2,683,618 for general voting and 215,960 for special voting, which will take place on the 18th of October, including members of the security forces, even those located outside the Kurdistan Region."
The total number of candidates has reached 1,191, competing for 100 seats in the Kurdistan Parliament, distributed as follows: 38 seats for Al-Sulaymaniyah governorate, 34 for Erbil, 25 for Halabja, and 3 seats divided among 823 males and 368 females. The number of candidates from alliances is 123, while party candidates total 946, along with 119 independent candidates for the general seats and the Christian and Turkmen quotas.
“The candidacy for the component seats is individual, with 38 candidates for the component quota seats. There are 20 individual candidates for the Turkmen two seats and 18 individual candidates for the three Christian seats,” Al-Rudaini confirmed.
“There are four electoral districts, and voters must exclusively carry a biometric card.” He noted. The proportional representation system will be applied in the elections according to a semi-open list, with vacant seats distributed after the initial distribution process based on the strongest remainder method for all lists and individual candidates, regardless of whether they obtained seats in that initial process. The simple majority system will apply to the component seats."
Moreover, Al-Rudaini observed that “political parties in the Region have employed various means of defamation, distortion, threats, and accusations during their election campaigns, which began on the 25th of September, along with the excessive distribution of candidate photos, particularly on sidewalks and public roads.”
"I call on political parties, candidates, and media outlets to abandon this tense electoral discourse and work to create a calm environment in the Region to ensure free and peaceful elections, especially amid the current regional tensions,” he concluded.
