The Democratic Party Wins the Parliamentary Elections in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

According to the results of the parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Masoud Barzani secured 45 seats, placing it at the top. Reuters reported on Sunday, October 20, citing the High Electoral Committee of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Kurdistan Democratic Party is currently the ruling party in the regional government. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a perennial rival of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, came in second with 21 seats. The parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq were held on September 30, but the announcement of the final results was delayed due to over a thousand complaints. Reuters noted that the weakness of opposition parties in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has allowed these two parties to hold power in the region for nearly three decades. It was previously predicted that the main competition in the parliamentary elections would be between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, with other parties having little chance of overcoming these two. These two parties, which were in military conflict in the 1990s, have been jointly administering the region for years, but the dominant power in the region remains with Masoud Barzani's party. The Gorran (Change) Party, considered the most serious opposition party in Iraqi Kurdistan, only managed to secure 12 seats out of the 111 parliamentary seats in this election. This election took place a year after the independence referendum of Kurdistan from Iraq. Although the referendum was successful at the ballot box, it failed in execution. Last September, Masoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, held a referendum for the complete independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, which has a population of six million, despite opposition from the central government of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, with 93% of voters supporting the independence of the region. The holding of the independence referendum increased tensions between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, while Iran and Turkey, which share borders with the Kurdistan Region, reacted sharply to it.