At 7am. this morning, 18 October, special voters in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (KRI) commenced the process of casting their ballots in the elections for the sixth term of the Kurdistan Parliament.
Today’s voting is reserved exclusively for security forces, police officers, and medical staff.
Reports from the KRI indicate that over 215,000 eligible voters will take part in today’s proceedings across the four provinces of Sulaymaniyah (Silemani), Erbil (Hewler), Dohuk (Dihok), and Halabja.
The Kurdistan Regional Election Commission has confirmed that a total of 215,960 special voters are eligible to participate, constituting 7.4% of the electorate.
Provincial figures show that nearly 90,000 special voters are registered in Erbil, around 80,000 in Sulaymaniyah, 46,000 in Dohuk, and only 1,000 in Halabja province.
Given the deployment of some security forces outside the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, 12 external polling stations have been established in Iraqi provinces such as Nineveh, Baghdad, Anbar, Salah al-Din, and Al-Wasit to facilitate these forces’ participation in the vote.
However, reports from Halabja suggest that the voting process there experienced tensions, adding a layer of complexity to an otherwise orderly election day in the other provinces.
Despite concerns over potential manipulation and influence in the sixth round of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament elections, the head of Iraq’s Supreme Election Commission has claimed that the electoral process has thus far proceeded without issue, asserting that the implementation of electronic voting has effectively eliminated any risk of fraud.
