“The legal committee of the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) has arrived in the Kurdistan Region to audit and approve the names of the candidates,” Khalid Abbas, head of the commission’s Duhok branch, told Rudaw.
The auditing process is expected to be completed by next week, according to Abbas, with the Kurdistan Region’s integrity commission and interior ministry previously having verified the names of candidates and submitted them to the commission.
Campaigning for the parliamentary elections is set to begin on September 16, and IHEC has previously warned against early campaigning, saying it will be punished with fines and potentially revoking the validity of candidates, parties, and political blocs to run in the polls.
“After the approval of the names, the campaigning period will start and most likely that will be on the 16th of this month,” said Abbas.
Nearly 2.9 million people are eligible to vote, including around 215,000 early voters. There will be 1,400 polling stations, including locations in the disputed areas and most Iraqi provinces, for eligible voters.
Early voting for security forces and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is scheduled for October 18, while the general vote will take place on October 20.
The electoral process has faced numerous challenges, with interference from Baghdad exacerbating tensions between the Kurdistan Region’s political parties, particularly between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The Kurdistan Region last held elections in 2018. The upcoming elections were initially scheduled for 2022, but have been delayed several times.
