ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The campaign for Iraq’s parliamentary elections kicked off today, with Kurdish parties bracing for the national vote amid many unresolved issues with Baghdad.

“If Kurdish political leaders treat the Iraqi elections wisely they are likely to win a great number of seats,” says Najib Abdullah, a parliamentarian from the Islamic Union (Yekgirtu).

Abdullah predicts the Kurds will win seven more seats in this month’s elections, increasing their overall presence in the Iraqi parliament to 64.

Abdullah, who serves in the Iraqi parliament, urges Kurdish parties to analyze every step in the lead-up to the polls, at the end of the month. Most importantly, he says, they must figure out an accurate count for the number of Kurds across Iraq, particularly in the multiethnic city of Kirkuk.

Though Kurds have their own regional parliament in Erbil, since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that removed Saddam Hussein, they have been participants in the Iraqi parliament and government, based on votes they gained in the past few elections.

In the 2010 elections, they won 57 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat parliament, most of their weight originating from the three provinces of Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimani that make up the Kurdistan Regional Government.

In the outlying provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh and Diyala that border the Kurdistan Region, there is a significant Kurdish population which often votes for the Kurdish parties.

Abdullah says they could win at least 20 seats in these areas if the groups can manage the campaigns wisely and address people’s needs.

Muhammad Ahmed, one of Abdullah’s party colleagues, thinks that Yekgirtu can increase its current four seats to seven in the next parliament.

On top of the seats they may win, Iraq’s new election law grants each province in the Kurdistan Region an extra seat.

Kurdish leaders pay great attention to Iraq’s parliamentary elections, and how they fare matters. The Iraqi parliament is a place where they can fight their political battles with the federal government, form alliances and vet any legislature that might harm their regional government.

Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) predicts it will be the biggest winner among all Kurdish parties on the national level. Its election commission expects the KDP to win 1.2 million votes across Iraq.

The commission also believes the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) will be second, and the Change Movement (Gorran), third.

This analysis is quite similar to the outcome of Kurdistan’s own parliamentary elections, held last September, the only difference being that the PUK has more followers than Gorran in the Kurdish areas outside the Kurdistan Region, namely, Kirkuk and Khanaqin.

Rudaw