Municipal Elections Held In Iraqi Kurdistan

The Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil called for municipal elections to be held on May 26, 2001, in 86 communities that contained more than 3,000 citizens in the Governorates of Duhok and Erbil.

Over 1,000 candidates ran for election either representing one of 15 political parties or as independents. According to all the observers who assisted in the process, it was a free and fair election. The overall turnout was 79 percent of all eligible voters.

Voter lists were prepared from the United Nations World Food Programme food ration card lists, and voter cards were distributed on that basis. From this information, it was determined that there were 559,304 eligible voters in the Erbil Governorate and of these 422,912 cast ballots (75.6 percent). In the Duhok Governorate, there were 327,190 eligible voters and 277,944 cast votes (85 percent).

The Kurdistan Democratic Party won in all municipalities by a large margin—81 percent of cast ballots. The Islamic United Party came in second. The government was pleased that amongst the voters was a significant turnout of women.

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