Al-Halbousi rejects proposal to delay provincial elections
Shafaq News- Baghdad
The Shiite Coordination Framework is trying to persuade its political partners to postpone provincial council elections, due next year, and hold them together with the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2029, a source in the alliance told Shafaq News on Wednesday.
Merging the two votes would save time and effort and cut costs, the source said.
Badr Organization leader Hadi al-Amiri recently met Mohammed al-Halbousi, leader of the Sunni Taqadum party and a former parliament speaker, to win his support for the proposal, according to the source. Al-Halbousi rejected it and insisted the provincial vote go ahead on schedule next year.
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“Iraq's political partners hold different views depending on their plans, and the proposal remains under study,” the source added.
Iraq held provincial council elections on December 18, 2023, in 15 provinces outside the Kurdistan Region, allowing the elected councils to resume their work in early 2024 after a suspension of about four years. The councils had been suspended by parliament on October 28, 2019, amid the Tishreen protests.
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Iraq's first provincial council elections were held on January 30, 2005, followed by further votes on January 31, 2009, and April 20, 2013. The 2023 elections marked the first provincial council vote in about a decade and did not include the Kurdistan Region's three provinces of Erbil, Al-Sulaymaniyah and Duhok.
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