Iraq’s Kurdistan announces November vote after delay

ARBIL, Iraq: Authorities in Iraq´s autonomous Kurdistan region announced on Sunday a November date for legislative elections which had been postponed by a year due to disputes between two major parties.

The regional parliament had voted in October to extend its term and reschedule the vote amid disagreements between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) over electoral constituency boundaries.

“November 18 has been set as the date for the elections” to the 111-seat legislature, said Dilshad Shihab, spokesman for the regional presidency. He told a news conference that “no party opposes this date”.

KDP controls the regional government in Arbil and has 45 seats in the current assembly. Together with the 21-seat PUK, which has produced all Iraqi presidents since Saddam Hussein´s fall in 2003, the two parties dominate politics in Iraqi Kurdistan. The regional parliament not only votes on legislation in the autonomous territory, but also approves Kurdistan government appointments including the prime minister. Kurdish officials have painted the region -- which has its own security forces, the peshmerga -- as a haven of stability in conflict-ridden Iraq.