“We will struggle in the sixth term of the Kurdistan Region parliament to limit the voting inside the Christian house and to limit voter documents inside the Christian house,” Ano Jawhar Abdoka, KRG minister of transport and communications, told reporters after casting his ballot.
Abdoka deemed the step necessary for Christian representation “not to be violated by the hands that want to impose themselves as unconstitutional and fake representatives of the Christians,”
Lawmakers from the minority quota in the Kurdish and Iraqi parliaments are often criticized for not being the true faces of the populations they represent but rather agents of ruling parties.
Winning minority candidates with external party affiliations often receive tens of thousands of votes from districts where the community has minimal to no presence, as big parties often mobilize scores of supporters to tip these candidates over the line in exchange for their loyalty in parliament.
“As Christians, our participation in these elections is a challenge, after the unjust decision to eliminate the quota seats … and after the tyranny that the Christian and Turkmen parties faced … we were able to return a small number of our seats in the parliament,” Abdoka stressed.
A major Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruling in February labeled the 11 quota seats in the Kurdistan Region’s parliament reserved for ethnic and religious minorities as “unconstitutional”, striking down their legitimacy and rendering chances of minorities to obtain representation almost impossible.
The court later reinstated a quota of five seats within the 100.
The Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christian community will have three seats in parliament - one in Erbil, Sulaimani, and Duhok respectively - and the other two are reserved for the Turkmens in Erbil and Sulaimani.
