Turkmen party threatens to boycott election over quota seats

Shafaq News/ The Turkmen Reform Party has threatened to boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq if the federal supreme court does not reinstate quota seats for minorities in the Region's legislature.

Mona Qahouji, deputy head of the Turkmen Reform Party, said on Thursday that efforts are underway to convince the federal supreme court to reverse its decision to abolish quota seats.

"The absence of quota seats in the Kurdistan Parliament is not in the interest of any party in the region," Qahouji told reporters in Erbil.

She added that the federal supreme court's decision to abolish quota seats was illegal and unconstitutional and undermines coexistence, calling for the decision to be reversed.

"The Kurdistan Parliament needs the participation of all political parties in the elections from all components," Qahouji continued, stressing that "if the quota seats are not reinstated, the Turkmen Reform Party will not participate in the elections" scheduled for next June.

In February, the federal supreme court ruled that the Kurdistan Region parliament's minority quota seats were "unconstitutional," saying that the region's parliament consists of 100 lawmakers, thus terminating the existence of eleven quota seats for the Turkmen, Christian, and Armenian minorities in the region that have been enacted in the legislature since 1992.