Under auspices of President Barzani, Kurdistan's parties agree to hold legislative election under current rules

Shafaq News/ Under the auspices of President Nechirvan Barzani, the political forces in the Kurdistan region agreed to hold a poll under the same rules of the 2018 polls that saw a land-sliding victory of the Kurdistan Democratic Party(KDP).

The President of the Kurdistan Region chaired a meeting that saw the main political parties in the semi-autonomous region convening for the third time to discuss the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for October 1st.

The meeting was also attended by United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Special Representative, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

Today's meeting is the third round of talks about the region's elections that are expected to be postponed until next year. Plasschaert previously headed a meeting with top officials from the Kurdish political parties in Erbil on 26 May in a bid to reach an agreement on the upcoming elections. She also participated in another meeting with the political parties on June 9.

Shafaq News Agency correspondent said that the region's incumbent election commission, whose mandate has expired, will be supervising the polls under the agreement forged today.

Another meeting will be scheduled for early September, according to our correspondent.

The upcoming parliamentary election in the region has been challenged by the intra-Kurdish divisions over the elections law, Independent High Commission for Election and Referendum, and parliamentary seat quotas.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has been calling for amending the elections law for a while. However, the Kurdistan Democratic Party expressed strong disagreement about this proposal, saying that amending the law requires all the political blocs to agree.

Parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan are held every four years, according to Article 8 of the Kurdistan elections law. The last election was held on Sept. 30, 2018. The KDP got 45 seats out of a total of 111 seats, while the PUK got 21 seats. The remaining seats were distributed among other small parties and independents.

The current parliament term will end Nov. 6, and if the elections do not take place on time, there will be a legal gap, and the region would be managed by a caretaker government. The current divisions between the KDP and the PUK in Baghdad have also deepened the intra-divisions in Erbil.