ARBIL, Iraq: The main party in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region Monday announced it would boycott June 10 local elections, accusing the Baghdad-based supreme court of interfering in regional affairs.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said it would not take part in the vote following a February ruling by the Federal Supreme Court that reduced the number of seats in the Kurdish parliament from 111 to 100, effectively eliminating a quota reserved for Armenian, Turkmen and Christian minorities.
The supreme court while amending the electoral law also ruled that the Iraqi Electoral Commission should oversee the elections instead of local committees.
“We believe that it is in the interest of our people for our party not to comply with an unconstitutional decision and a system imposed from the outside,” said a statement issued by the KDP, the largest party in the outgoing Kurdish parliament with 45 seats.
KDP is followed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which has 21 seats and enjoys friendlier ties with the central government in Baghdad.
The statement added the party will not take part in an election “imposed” by the court that “violates the law and the constitution”.
Under an unspoken deal between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, which is reserved for a Kurd, while the president of the region is taken from the KDP.
A boycott of the polls by the KDP might further delay the vote which had been originally slated to take place on October 22 last year.
Last week, Turkmen and Christian political parties also announced plans to boycott the vote. The Kurdistan region has been autonomous since 1991.
