Lawmaker praises the Kurds' participation in Kirkuk's local election

Shafaq News/ Lawmaker Dara Sekanyani on Tuesday commended the Kurds' participation in the local election in Kirkuk, as they turned out in large numbers for the highly anticipated event.

"One of the positive indicators of the provincial council elections that took place yesterday is the good participation of the Kurds in Kirkuk," Sekanyani told the Shafaq News Agency. "Despite their observations and grievances about the performance of the authority, they felt that the situation in Kirkuk has a specificity and that the elections should be dealt with separately from the observations and failures recorded with them. This made the Kurdish participation good and worthy of praise."

Sekanyani added that the elections were fully prepared by the High Electoral Commission in a good way and that no observations or objections emerged that cast doubt on the integrity of the elections.

"Although we cannot say that they were transparent and fair by 100%, they were good to some extent, and for this reason the Kurds won the highest number of seats in the Kirkuk provincial council," he said.

Sekanyani pointed out that some Kurdish parties did not win seats in the Kirkuk provincial council for several reasons, the most important of which is the electoral law (Sainte-Lego Law 7/1), which allows large lists to obtain the most votes at the expense of smaller parties that did not obtain the electoral seat entitlement.

He noted that "the participation rate in the elections was clearly declining in the central and southern provinces, while the participation rate was relatively realistic in the provinces of Diyala, Anbar, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Nineveh."

Regarding the decline in voter turnout in the central and southern provinces, Sekanyani explained that "the general situation in the regional region due to the events of Gaza and Israel, as well as the position on the American forces and the attacks targeting them by resistance factions, in addition to the boycott of the Sadrist Movement for the elections, were all factors that affected the participation rates in them."