Barzani’s party wins most seats in Kurdish regional parliament election
Massud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has secured the most seats in the semi-autonomous region's parliament, the local electoral commission says.
According to final results announced by the commission on Sunday, KDP won 45 of 111 seats in the September 30 elections.
The KDP's main rivals, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), will see 21 of its lawmakers enter parliament.
The main opposition Goran (Change) was left with 12 lawmakers in Kurdistan's parliamentary vote.
The New Generation movement, founded this year to channel public anger at the region's elite, won eight seats in the poll.
The remainder of the seats were won by smaller, mainly Islamic parties. The ethnic and religious minorities of Kurdistan's three provinces in northern Iraq are reserved 11 seats in parliament. Five each go to Turkmen and Christian candidates, with one for the Armenian community.
Goran and numerous Islamic parties have said they will reject the results of the vote.
The results mean the KDP could theoretically have the parliamentary majority without having to form an alliance with its political rivals.
In early October, the leaders of the region's top two political parties also took their rivalry to Baghdad, contesting the honorary role of Iraqi president.
The presidency has been reserved for the Kurds since Iraq's first multi-party elections in 2005, held two years after the US-led invasion.
The PUK's candidate Barham Saleh won that race, maintaining a tacit accord between the two parties which sees the PUK take the federal presidency while the KDP holds the Kurdistan presidency.
The Iraqi Kurdish presidency has, however, been left vacant since Barzani stepped down following a failed independence referendum last year.
The appointment of a new president to replace Barzani has been on hold, pending the drafting of a new Kurdish constitution.
Barzani was the key backer of Kurdistan's independence vote in September 2017 that was declared illegal by Iraq's central government and saw Baghdad impose economic penalties and retake disputed territory.
The United Nations and the US as well as regional powers like Iran and Turkey also rejected the referendum by the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), arguing that it could create further instability in the already volatile region.
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