Kurdish New Generation party rejects Kurdistan Region's election results

Recently established party and first-time contender in the Kurdistan Region's parliamentary elections, New Generation, on Monday rejected the election results.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Recently established party and first-time contender in the Kurdistan Region's parliamentary elections, New Generation, on Monday rejected the election results despite modest prospects, stating they would announce their decision regarding the process in the coming days.

“According to observers [working with the] ballot boxes, forgeries were witnessed during the process,” a brief statement by New Generation, published by its affiliated media outlet, alleged. It also reported that international and local observers were, in some cases, assaulted during the voting process.

The party, led by Shaswar Abdulwahid, a wealthy businessman and founder of Nalia Media and Radio, was recently established in Sulaimani and gained four seats in the May 12 Iraqi parliamentary elections. At that time, when early results were released, they were among the first to claim electoral fraud had taken place and objected to the process, accusing rival parties in the Kurdistan Region of vote-rigging.

Based on preliminary and unofficial results, New Generation has received just over eight percent of the votes with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the lead with 43 percent, followed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) at 20 percent, and the opposition Change (Gorran) Movement at 12 percent.

At the conclusion of the Sep. 30 election – in which the Electoral Commission opted to use a manual ballot-counting system rather than the electronic one from the Iraqi national elections to avoid criticism – PUK spokesman, Saadi Ahmed Pira, alleged fraud, calling on relevant authorities to “investigate the matter.” 

Editing by Nadia Riva