After multiple twists and turns, the parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan will take place on October 20. Voters in the autonomous region of northern Iraq have not been called to the polls since 2018. This situation is leading to the paralysis of institutions, but the electoral campaign has finally started.
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For two days, yellow flags – the color of the PDK, the ruling party – have invaded the streets of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In Souleymanieh in the neighboring province, it is the green of the PUK which covers the town.
The return of the pennants marks the launch of an electoral campaign that the Kurds no longer hoped. Planned two years ago, then postponed four times, these elections will renew the 100 seats in Parliament. The vote will finally be held on October 20.
Tensions between the two Kurdish parties
These successive postponements are the result of tensions between the two Kurdish parties, former rivals in the civil war which tore Kurdistan apart in the 1990s.
If these elections can be held, it is because the Iraqi federal court in Baghdad finally imposed the conditions. This is an unprecedented intervention in the Kurdish electoral process and a testimony to the loss of autonomy of Kurdistan, entangled in its internal conflicts. It is, for example, Baghdad which now provides the salaries of civil servants.
The yellows and greens will lead a vigorous campaign among almost three million voters. But few of them think that their vote could put an end to the duopoly which paralyzes the institutions.
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