ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - With seven Kurdish parties vying for votes in Iraq’s parliamentary election, how can voters maximize Kurdish representation in Baghdad, especially in the disputed areas?
The most successful election for Kurds, based on seat count, was Iraq’s first one after the end of the Baathist era. In a vote held in January 2005 to elect a transitional assembly, Kurds won 78 seats out of 275. In that election, the country voted as one single constituency. In December of the same year, Iraq held its second election, but under a multi-constituency system, the number of Kurdish seats dropped to 58 out of 329. The second election was officially considered the first term of the legislature.
"In this year, despite the increase of 500,000 votes, the number of Kurdish seats dropped from 78 to 58, due to changes to the electoral law from one single constituency to 18 electoral districts, dealing a massive blow to the Kurds,” Aram Bradosti, an election expert, told Rudaw's Hiwa Jamal on Saturday.
Since 2005, Kurdish seats in the federal parliament have stayed relatively stable. In the second term - from 2010 to 2014 - Kurds won 60 seats. In the third term - 2014 to 2018 - Kurdish parties secured 62 seats, while in the fourth and fifth terms, they had 57 and 63 seats respectively.
“One of the biggest problems is that every election held since 2005, either the law has been amended or the electoral law has been repealed and another law has been introduced," Bradosti said. "This has always made [Kurdish] political parties, especially those with positions, fearful and unstable in their seats."
Under Iraq’s various election laws, voter constituencies have ranged from a single one encompassing the entire country to following provincial boundaries to much smaller districts after the Tishreen protest movement of 2019. Currently, each province is considered a single constituency.
"Kurdish parties have votes in Basra, Baghdad, Diyala and some other constituencies, but the multi-constituency will divide the votes," said Bradosti.
Kurdish parties, altogether, are projected to win between 58 and 63 seats in the November 11 election.
There are 44 seats allocated to the provinces of the Kurdistan Region - Duhok, Erbil, Sulaimani, and Halabja. Where Kurdish parties have the most room to grow is in the disputed provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, as well as predominantly Kurdish towns located in Diyala and Salahaddin provinces.
The current number of seats in the Iraqi parliament is 329. This number is determined by an election law that previously used a ratio of one seat per 100,000 citizens based on older census data.
Based on the 2024 census, the population of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region stands at 46.
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1 million. Of this, approximately 27 million are eligible voters aged 19 and above. However, only those who possess biometric voting cards will be allowed to vote.
Using figures from the most recent census, if one seat is per 100,000 votes, the number of seats should be 465 and the Kurdistan Region should have 65 seats. Iraq has not yet enacted necessary legislative changes based on the latest census.
Kurdish representation in Kirkuk
The two largest Kurdish parties are the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK has the strongest support base in the disputed province of Kirkuk and has always won the majority of Kurdish votes here, followed by the KDP by a large margin. Other Kurdish parties have repeatedly failed to secure a seat.
Bradosti has warned Kurdish voters in Kirkuk and other disputed areas that any vote cast for parties other than KDP and PUK is in danger of being lost due to the amended Sainte-Laguë method, which serves large parties and harms smaller ones.
In March 2023, Iraq’s State Administration Coalition led efforts to adopt a modified proportional representation system based on the Sainte-Laguë method. Under this system, total party votes are divided by a fixed quotient to allocate parliamentary seats. The amendments also reverted Iraq’s electoral map from 83 districts to the previous model of 19 province-wide constituencies.
"According to the system, the Kurdish parties that will win seats in Kirkuk are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Therefore, I am surely saying voting for parties other than the PUK and KDP will be wasted," Bradosti said.
"In the previous elections, we saw more than 30,000 Kurdish votes, which was enough for one seat in the provincial council, were wasted. The reason was that they did not reach the level to win seats according to the system," he said.
Hogir Chato, coordinator of Shams Network, the election observation network, disagrees. He believes a unified Kurdish front is the best way to optimize votes.
"There is no doubt that based on the Sainte-Laguë method, the parties will lose some of their votes and their votes will not translate to seats, when they run on separate and independent lists," Chato told Rudaw English. "This harms the PUK and KDP as well."
"In this election, in the KDP and PUK lists, a number of votes will be wasted… But if they [all the Kurdish parties] are altogether, it would be better. The more the parties run on a united list, the system favors them better, because in this case we may just lose the least amount of votes," Chato explained.