ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Gorran (Change) announced late on Saturday that they will enter the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections as a coalition.

They will run in the October vote as one list under the name “Kurdistan Coalition,” party-affiliated PUKMedia reported on Saturday night.

“The head of the joint list of PUK and Gorran for the coming Iraqi elections will be PUK co-chair Lahur Talabani,” politburo member Rizgar Haji Hama told PUKMedia.

Gorran was founded in 2009 by a breakaway group of PUK members disgruntled with the parent party’s politics. They were led by the late Nawshirwan Mustafa and set out to be an opposition movement, but beat the PUK in the 2013 elections for the regional parliament. Gorran is now a member of the Kurdistan Region cabinet.

The two parties have had a rocky relationship, competing for votes in their Sulaimani base. They hold a combined 23 seats in the Iraqi parliament and hope that running as a coalition will expand their presence in Baghdad.

Iraq will hold elections on October 10, ahead of schedule. Early elections were one of the demands of protesters who took to the streets in October 2019 across central and southern Iraq. The electoral commission extended registration periods multiple times, saying registration was low. Saturday was the last day for coalitions to register.

There were attempts to form a broad Kurdish coalition, but the parties failed to find common ground and, apart from the PUK and Gorran alliance, the other parties will contest the vote independently.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) will field 55 candidates in eleven provinces. The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) will not contest the election, but are supporting six independent candidates. The recently rebranded Kurdistan Justice Group (Komal) is putting forward five candidates. New Generation will also participate in the vote as a stand-alone party.

Rudaw