Federal Supreme Court denied Kurdistan Region its parliamentary election

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The successive court rulings by the Federal Supreme Court in Iraq prevented the sixth round of parliamentary elections that had been planned to occur on Feb. 25, 2024. It is expected that the elections will be delayed for four months.

Were it not for the decisions of the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court and the postponement of the court's successive hearings on the Kurdistan Regional Government's electoral law, the sixth session of the Kurdistan Parliament election was supposed to be held on Sunday, Feb 25, 2024.

Earlier, Kurdistan Region’s President Nechirvan Barzani had identified Feb. 25 as the designated date for the parliamentary elections in Kurdistan Region. However, due to filed complaints on the election law, the Federal Supreme Court postponed the session to reach a verdict for 11 times, and by doing that, also postponed the parliamentary election in Kurdistan Region. This caused the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) to fail in its preparation for the election.

The Independent High Electoral Commission remained in a limbo for six months and waited for a decision from the Federal Supreme Court. This affected the IHEC preparation for the election considerably, since as they said, “any decision by the Federal Court impacts our preparations for the parliamentary elections in Kurdistan Region. That is why we have notified the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region of the inability of IHEC to hold elections on Feb 25.”

The articles that are under scrutiny specify the number of parliamentary seats, implementation of the Sainte-Laguë method of parliament seat distribution, and the quota seats allocated to the ethnic and religious minorities in the Kurdistan Region parliament. The complaints were launched by Ziad Jabbar, head of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) bloc in the fifth round of Kurdistan Region parliament as well as Amanj Najib Shamoun, the Christian Representative from Council of Sulaimani Providence.

The Presidency and Government of Kurdistan Region, as well as the representatives of all ethnic and religious components of the Kurdistan Region, reiterated that the real purpose of postponements over the complaints against the election law was to halt the democratic process and elections in the Kurdistan Region.

The 12 Sessions of the Federal Supreme Court on Kurdistan Region Election Law

For the first time, the session over the complaints filed against the election law was held on Aug. 6, 2023.  However, the court asked for further information about the election to be handed over, and then the session was deferred to Sep 3. 2023.

On Sep. 3, for the second time the session was held, but it was to no avail. The session was again postponed to another date.

During Oct. to Dec., 2023, the Federal Supreme Court held five different and consecutive sessions. However, the hearings were postponed due to various reasons.

Since the turn of the year, the Federal Court has had four hearings over the same complaint. Ultimately, on Feb. 21, 2024, the court ruled to nullify and remove the 11 quota seats, reducing the Kurdistan Region parliamentary seats from 111 to 100. Also, the verdict divided the Kurdistan Region into four constituencies.

The new set date for the Parliamentary Election

A meeting is set to take place between the Kurdistan Region Presidency and representatives of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) to set a new date for the parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region. It is expected to hold the election in June, 2024.

On Tuesday, a delegation of the Kurdistan Region Presidency and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) met with the representatives of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) delegation.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani remarked in a post on Facebook that a meeting was convened with both the UNAMI and IHEC delegation. “The main goal behind this meeting was to discuss the preliminary steps that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has taken toward parliamentary election. The Presidency and the KRG have provided all the facilitations in order to hold the parliamentary election in a professional and transparent manner,” clarified Hawramani.