Kurdish participation in Iraq's elections is a right and obligation: KRG minister

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Vala Fareed, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Minister of State for Parliament Affairs, urged Kurds to vote in Iraq’s upcoming October parliamentary elections.

The minister stressed that Kurdish participation in the election is both a right and an obligation. 

“People should vote for the Kurdish candidates, to strengthen Kurd’s position at the decision-making center,” she said, referring to the Iraqi parliament, in an interview published on the KRG’s Media and Information Department website on Friday. 

Fareed, 46, became Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in July 2019. She was previously elected the first female Speaker of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament in February 2019. 

She was born in the Kurdistan Region’s capital Erbil. 

Iraq’s parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on October 10. They will determine the 329 members of the Council of Representatives who will, in turn, elect the country's president and prime minister. 

The elections were initially scheduled to take place in June 2021. However, they were delayed after the Independent Electoral Commission requested more time to organize them. The cabinet of Iraq granted that request back in January.