Kurdistan's Ministries of Education warn of electoral campaigning on school grounds

Parties or candidates who campaign in universities or colleges will be punished for violating electoral rules, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Higher Education announced on Monday.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Parties or candidates who campaign in universities or colleges will be punished for violating electoral rules, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Higher Education announced on Monday.

Iraq and the Kurdistan Region will be holding national legislative elections on May 12, the first since the defeat of the Islamic State (IS).

Campaigning for the upcoming elections began last week. Thousands of posters and banners for candidates and parties vying for a seat in Baghdad’s Parliament have already sprung up in cities and towns across the country.

“No university, college, institute or establishment of Higher Education and Scientific Research can allow candidates to use their websites, social media pages, meeting halls, cafeterias, public spaces or walls on school grounds for electoral campaigning,” the ministry declared in a statement.

“If a candidate is an instructor or holds any other administrative post at a university, they are still prohibited from using their posts to promote themselves or their party.”

The statement warned that those promoting any party or candidate through any of the mediums mentioned above would be punished and would face legal consequences.

The Ministry of Education issued a similar statement on the same day, prohibiting the use of primary and secondary school grounds and walls as locations at which parties and candidates can campaign.

Previously, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs released a warning, affirming mosques and religious sites were not to be used for any form of electoral campaigning.

Close to 7,000 candidates have been certified to run in next months elections, competing for 329 seats in Baghdads parliament, according to Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).

Editing by Nadia Riva