KDP to be part of future Nineveh local government, says party official

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) will retain its strong presence in Nineveh province and be part of future local government, a party official claimed on Saturday.

In Iraq's last election in 2021, the KDP, running on its own, secured at least nine seats in Nineveh, home to diverse ethnoreligious components, Yahia Abdul Kareem, the head of the electoral department at the party’s Branch 23 in Makhmour district, told Kurdistan 24 on Saturday.

“We believe a [Nineveh] governor could not be elected without KDP [vote],” Abdul Kareem said, hinting the Kurdish party will retain its “strong presence” following the Dec. 18 provincial elections.

The optimistic forecast is based on “studies” the party has held about its electoral standing, he said.

Nineveh province has been historically a KDP stronghold in the disputed territories between Erbil and Bagdad. The current deputy governor of the province is held by a KDP member.

The party has ramped up its electoral campaigns in all the disputed territories to secure more votes in the provincial elections, which it sees as critical for the future of Kurdish presence in those areas, the KDP officials have said on numerous occasions.

Following years of absence sparked by the Oct. 16, 2017 offensive of Iranian-backed forces and Iraqi military on Kirkuk, the KDP refused to run in the 2018 elections in the oil-rich province as a form of protest to the “military rule imposed on the city”.

The party has officially returned to Kirkuk and opened its headquarters recently. 

It is been for a decade that Iraq has not been able to hold provincial elections. The provincial councils were dissolved following the 2019 mass protests.