Ezidi Kurd elected to Russian Parliament for fifth time

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – An Yezidi (Ezidi) Kurdish politician Zelimkhan Alikoevich Mutsoev made it to the Russian State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly, for the fifth time in a parliamentary election on Monday.

Mutsoev, 57, was reelected to the Russian Parliament with 47 percent of votes in his constituency of Sverdlovsk Oblast, east of the capital Moscow, said a Kurdistan24 reporter there.

A civil engineer by profession, the Georgian-born Kurd has been a member of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia, the largest and ruling party in the Russian Federation, since 2005.

United Russia secured 54 percent of votes and 343 seats in the 450-member parliament in a landslide victory in the September 18 legislative elections.

Russia has a sizeable Ezidi Kurdish minority in tens of thousands who in early 20th century fled Ottoman Turkish persecution.

Ezidis in Russia and other former Soviet countries including Georgia and Armenia speak Kurmanji dialect of the Kurdish language.

It is not clear how many Kurds live in Mutsoev's electoral district of Sverdlovsk.

Mutsoev is a former Deputy Chairperson of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs in charge of Middle Eastern relations, according to his personal website.

In an interview with Kurdistan24, the Russian Ezidi politician urged unity among Kurdish parties in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) that in August 2014 overran the town and environs of Shingal (Sinjar) in Southern Kurdistan, massacring thousands of men and enslaving thousands of women belonging to the Ezidi faith.