Shafaq News/ The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) announced, on Saturday, that it has made significant progress in the results of the special voting for the Kurdish Parliament elections.
A source reported to Shafaq News Agency that the KDP emerged victorious in the special ballot for the parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region, garnering approximately 83,000 votes.
Hemin Hawrami, head of the KDP's electoral committee, stated that "during the special voting day, we had 165 supervisors at all centers in the Region, in addition to 749 agents at the polling stations. According to the data sent by them, the KDP received 86,775 votes, which is an increase of 24,000 votes compared to the 2018 parliamentary elections, where we secured 62,000 votes in the special voting."
He added, "According to the reports sent by our agents, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) received only 50,776 votes, meaning the KDP is ahead of the PUK by 36,000 votes. The Jil Jadeed (new generation) party received 11,078 votes, the Islamic Union obtained 3,018 votes, the People's Front secured 2,051 votes, the Justice Group received 2,365 votes, the Gorran (change) Movement obtained 586 votes, and the Alliance for Reform and Services garnered 2,448 votes."
The special voting process commenced at 07:00 a.m. and concluded at 06:00 p.m., as per the schedule set by the Election Commission.
The general voting is set to begin on Sunday, October 20, with 1,091 candidates from both genders competing for 100 seats, of which five are reserved for minority groups—a reduction from the previous 11 seats as mandated by the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq.
According to electoral law, at least 30 of the seats must be allocated for women.
The total number of voters in the Kurdistan Region is 2,899,578, with 215,960 eligible to vote in the special elections, while the remaining 2,683,618 voters will participate in the general elections on Sunday.