Iraqi High Election Commission staff meet in the election hall for the first provincial council elections in a decade, at a polling station in Sadr City in the capital Baghdad, Dec. 18, 2023. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)
A voter (right) is seen waiting for electoral officials to verify his identity in order to cast his ballot at the Iraqi provincial elections in Erbil, Dec. 16, 2023. (Photo: Hoshmand Sadiq/Kurdistan24)
Iraqis walk past Kurdish flags in central Kirkuk on the eve of an independence referendum for the autonomous region of Kurdistan, Sept. 24, 2017. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)
