“Today at 11:00 the first session of the sixth term of the parliament will commence to elect the speaker and members of the presidency, but if there are not enough votes for the election, the session will remain open,” Hiwa Nusraddin, deputy chief of the Diwan of parliament, told Rudaw.
The NGM’s Mohammed Sulaiman from Sulaimani province will chair the session as the oldest elected lawmaker in parliament, according to Nusraddin.
At least one of the three positions of parliament speaker, deputy speaker, and secretary must be filled by a woman.
The Kurdistan Region held its long-overdue parliamentary elections on October 20, resulting in a consolidation of power for the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which won 39 seats, followed by its government ally but political rival the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) with 23 seats. The opposition NGM took third place with 15 seats.
Opposition parties Komal, the Kurdistan Islamic Union, the People’s Front (Baray Gal), and the National Stance Movement (Halwest) have repeatedly denounced the election results, alleging fraud and voter manipulation.
On Saturday, KDP and PUK representatives met in Sulaimani to commence cabinet formation talks. Both parties “expressed their readiness to continue the meetings between them and all other Kurdistani parties,” according to a statement from Qubad Talabani, a senior PUK member and the deputy prime minister in the outgoing government.
