The electoral commission announced on Wednesday that the ruling party in Iraq’s oil-rich Kurdistan autonomous region won the most seats in the legislative election this month.
According to the commission, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is led by the powerful Barzani family, won 39 of the 100 seats in the parliament on October 20.
Through alliances with deputies from Armenian, Christian, and Turkmen minority quotas, the KDP controlled 45 seats in the current parliament and was the majority party.
The region’s other dominant party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), finished in second place with 23 seats, while the opposition party New Generation nearly doubled its number of seats to 15.
The vote, which had been scheduled for two years, was postponed four times due to disagreements between the KDP and PUK.
With its ties to the United States and Europe, Iraqi Kurdistan, which is home to six million people, advertises itself as a safe haven in the Middle East.
However, critics contend that it faces the same problems as Iraq as a whole: cronyism, political oppression, and corruption.
Concerns about economic hardship and dissatisfaction with the political elite had been raised by voters.
According to the electoral commission, new parties and opposition Islamist parties received the remaining seats, including seven seats from the Kurdistan Islamic Union.
Compared to 59 percent in the 2018 election, 72 percent of the 2.9 million eligible voters cast ballots.
Nechirvan Barzani, a KDP leader, and Masrour Barzani, his cousin, are currently the president and prime minister that the new parliament must choose.