The parliament of Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Council of Ministers will have their final say whether the KRG provincial elections will be held on time or postponed on Monday, says head of the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).
The two bodies will decide whether the provincial elections, that have already late due to postponements, will be postponed again, said Faraj Haidari, head of the IHEC, the electoral body tasked with conducting elections in the country.


“Tomorrow, the IHEC will meet with Imad Ahmed, deputy KRG Prime Minister to discuss the issue of the provincial elections.” said Haidari. The provincial elections have been scheduled for September this year. However, the IHEC has been requesting from the KRG authorities to postpone the elections for another two months for technical reasons.


Asked whether the IHEC wil be able to conduct the election if the request was rejected, Haidari said: “… of course we can conduct the elections on time, that’s September 27 if our bid was turned down. But we might face technical problems”


Some of the technical issue that the IHEC has warned about is that according to the Elections Law, the Christians need to for their own candidates lists so that the Christian voters will vote only for their Christian candidates within a quota system allocated for them. “But we still don’t have a list of the Christian candidates ready yet”


AKnews contacted Tariq Sarmami, media adviser to the Speaker of the Kurdish Parliament for a comment, but he was not “aware” of a meeting between the parliament and the IHEC.




Aknews