Shafaq News/ On Saturday, Erbilprovince, the capital of the Kurdistan Region (KRI), directed allcompanies and business owners in the private sector to grant temporary leave toemployees on general election day, scheduled for Sunday.
The province stated, "On general election day, recognizing that voting isa right for everyone, it has been decided to instruct private sector companiesand business owners to grant their employees a temporary leave of two hours to exercisetheir right to participate in the elections."
"On election day, all streets and checkpoints within Erbil will remainopen," it added.
On Friday, the Kurdistan Regional Government announced the suspension ofofficial working hours for Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with the sixthround of the Kurdistan Parliament elections.
A total of 1,091 candidates,including men and women, are competing for 100 seats in the regionalparliament, five of which are reserved for minority communities as part of aquota system.
According to the election law, atleast 30 seats must be allocated to women.
The Kurdistan Region has 2,899,578registered voters, of whom 215,960 were eligible to participate in the specialvote. The remaining 2,683,618 voters will cast their ballots in the generalelection.