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Opposition awaits poll results in Southern Kurdistan’s elections

 
According to preliminary results, the two main Kurdish parties currently in government coalition would retain the majority of seats, but new Goran List would have won at Silêmanî province · It remains to be seen whether Massud Barzani will be re-elected again · Goran List has campaigned against corruption by governmental parties.

In the absence of final results in Southern Kurdistan's parliamentary elections, it seems that the assembly composition is to witness great changes due to the emergence of a new party. Alliance between Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by current president of the Kurdish autonomous region Massud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whose leader is Iraq's current president, Jalal Talabani, is being challenged by Goran ("Change"), a new list that has campaigned in favour of a political reform and has consistently critizised the corruption of a two-party system with no parliamentary opposition. KDP and PUK were retaining 104 out of 111 seats in the previous assembly.

Even though the Independent High Electoral Commission has not yet issued the official results, several media have revealed some estimations. According to Alsumaria TV website, the governmental coalition would obtain 53 to 55 seats, "in addition to 11 seats allocated for minorities including Turkmen and Christians who constitute Barazani's traditional ally". Goran List may win 28, and the rest of opposition parties, which are headed by islamist lists, 17.
Thus, Goran would not only become the main opposition party in parliament, but emerge as the strongest political force in Silêmanî (As-Sulaymaniyah, one of the three provinces into which Iraqi Kurdistan is divided), getting up to 50% of the share.

Reuters news agency says that such results "could mark a turning point for Kurdistan, where political alternatives to the two powerful parties have been scant and where critics complain of a lack of transparency, of media intimidation and of security force abuses".

Goran has in fact reported irregularities such as balloting by unregistered voters and unwarranted extension of polling hours. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, an "independent Kurdish electoral-observer panel raised concerns that the ink used to mark the thumbs of those who had cast ballots could be easily washed off, possibly allowing people to vote more than once". Reuters quoted spokesman for Goran Abdil Mamand as saying that "if the fraud wasn't happening, we think we could have had more than 35 seats".

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