A senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said his party supports the recent decision reached by Kurdish political parties to participate in the upcoming provincial elections in Kirkuk under a united electoral list, stressing that “Kurdish unity is of great significance” for the KDP.
“We back the formation of a united list. If the situation is normalized in Kirkuk we will participate in the elections; otherwise we will boycott the process,” Khasraw Goran, head of the KDP’s elections office told KirkukNow.
The KDP official’s comments came after representatives of Kurdish political parties, except the KDP, on Monday September 9, 2019 said following a meeting at the Kurdistan Communist Party’s office in Kirkuk that they reached an agreement to participate under a joint list in the elections planned for April next year across Iraq, including the disputed multi-ethnic province of Kirkuk.
Rawand Mala Mahmoud, deputy head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) organizational center in Kirkuk told KirkukNow following the meeting that “all the factions agreed to take part in the elections under a united list which we have named, Kirkuk is Kurdistani.”
Concerning the absence of representatives of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the meeting, the PUK official said “they also support the formation of a united list,” indicating that their views were taken into account.
The provincial elections is seen as a highly anticipated event in Kirkuk where the process have not been held since 2005 due to ongoing disputes between the various components of the province.
