A leading Kurdish party said Sunday it has earned a seat on October 10th general elections in a predominantly Sunni Arab province north of Baghdad in the first time since ousting of Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, local officials told KirkukNow.
Karim Shukur, a candidate of Kurdistan alliance, formed by the Patriotic union of Kurdistan PUK, led by Bafel Talabani, and (Gorran) Change movement, has earned adequate votes to win a seat out four seats of Salah al-Din's fourth constituency in the district of Duz Khurmatu.
PUK's Hamrin office said the preliminary results show that Shukur has collected over 11,000 votes and earned a parliamentary seat.
The Kurdish residents of Khurmatu were celebrating the preliminary results even ahead of official ending of ballot casting.
Earlier, Sirwan Habib, member of election committee of Duz office for the independent high Electoral Commission IHEC told KirkukNow "Kurds look for a seat in Duz Khumatu where they had three candidates for Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP, Kurdistan alliance and an independent candidate whom stopped campaign and withdrew."
The predominantly Sunni province of Salah al-Din, about 135 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital, once home for Saddam Hussein, is under the control of Iraq's Shia-led paramilitary forces known as al-Hashid al-Shabi, the Popular Mobilization Units PMU.
In the last elections of May 2018, six Kurdish nominees from different lists and alliances could not make it to the Iraqi parliament in Salah al-Din.
The PUK has earned 17,000 votes in 2014 elections yet could not win a seat, which dropped into less than 5,000 votes in 2018 elections.
The KDP boycotted 2018 elections in the disputed territories following October 2017 events when Iraqi forces launched "Law imposing" process which ousted Kurdish parties and the Peshmerga from the positions they controlled following emergence of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Electoral district two of Salah al-Din covers the districts and sub-districts of Duz, home to 150,000 Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, beside Balad, Dujail, Yathrib and Zilouya, where 62 candidates compete to win three seats and a seat for women quota.
Over one million voters of Salah al-Din province were eligible to vote in three constituencies where 194 nominees, 61 one of them women, were vying for 12 seats.
The vote was brought forward by six months in response to a popular uprising in the capital Baghdad's Tahrir Square and southern provinces late 2019 when tens of thousands of Iraqis, mainly unemployed young people took to the streets to protest endemic corruption, poor services and rising unemployment.
