The Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary elections scheduled for February must be carried out on time and not delayed any further, a United Nations (UN) official told Gav, with the vote already having been delayed on numerous occasions. 

“We have emphasized the importance of organized elections according to the constitutional deadlines for any functional democracy, especially the Kurdistan parliamentary elections, without further delay,” Claudio Cordone, the UN’s Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, told Gav’s Hastyar Qadir.

A new parliamentary vote was set to be held in October 2022, but disagreements between the Kurdish political parties, especially the ruling ones, over the existing elections law and the electoral commission prevented the process from being conducted on its scheduled time and pushed the legislature to extend its four-year term for an additional year.

In early August, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani set February 25 as the date for the parliamentary elections, after a previous November 18 date was rejected when the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court in May deemed the self-extension of the Kurdistan parliament “unconstitutional” and dissolved it.

The elections will be supervised by Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) after the federal court’s decision revoked the ability for the Kurdistan Region’s electoral commission to carry out the vote.