Voting begins to elect new parliament in Iraq’s Kurdistan
ARBIL, Iraq: Voting began yesterday across Iraq’s Kurdistan for a new parliament in the autonomous region, which is mired in an economic crisis a year after an independence referendum that infuriated Baghdad.
Almost 3.1 million voters are eligible to cast ballots across three provinces in the northern region where 673 candidates from 29 political movements are vying for seats in the 111-member parliament.
Eleven of the seats are however reserved for religious and ethnic minorities: five for Turkmen candidates, five for Christians and one for the Armenian community.
Iraq’s Kurds have been a key US partner in the war against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and had hoped their role would boost international support for statehood.
But a massive ‘yes’ vote in the September 2017 referendum for independence, deemed illegal by Iraq’s federal government, backfired on the oil-rich autonomous Kurdish region.
Baghdad imposed economic penalties and sent federal troops to push Kurdish forces out of oil fields vital for the region’s economy, depriving it of a key lifeline.
This election must “start a new chapter” in relations between Kurdistan and Baghdad, said 26year-old Hawzar Salar as he cast his ballot in the regional capital Arbil.
The vote, he said, comes “after the problems caused by the referendum and the war against the Islamic State group.”
Kurdistan had enjoyed an economic boom after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled veteran dictator Saddam Hussein, as the rest of the country sank into violence.
But the emergence of IS in 2014 coupled with tumbling oil prices battered the region’s economy.
Since 2014, Iraqi Kurdistan has borrowed more than US$4 billion to stay afloat, according to some experts, and before the doomed referendum it had chalked up debt of around US$12 billion.
According to official figures, 87 percent of households across Iraqi Kurdistan — home to around six million people — eke out a living on less than US$850 per month.
“The future authorities must look after the people, especially the poor,” added Soran Rassul, an unemployed man who voted in Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan’s second city.
The election is not expected to change the political map in Kurdistan, according to experts, but could shed light on the divisions that emerged after the 2017 referendum.