Iraqi Communist Party defends minority representation in Kurdistan parliament

Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Communist Party on Monday warned against "undermining" the representation of minorities in the Kurdistan Region Parliament following a Supreme Federal Court ruling to abolish the quota system in Kurdistan.

The court declared that a specific article concerning the minority quota in KRG's provincial election law was deemed "unconstitutional." This article, part of a law initially adopted in 1992 and revised in 2013, mandates 11 quota seats in the Regional parliament for ethnic and religious minorities. In response, most Christian and Turkmen political parties decided to boycott the elections.

According to the Party's political bureau statement, the ruling “nullifies a positive distinction that Kurdistan has enjoyed since 1991."

"the Supreme Federal Court issued a decision on February 21, 2024, to determine the Kurdistan Parliament seats at one hundred members, effectively canceling the eleven seats reserved for minorities (Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrians, Turkmens, and Armenians), thus eliminating the positive distinction they had been entitled to since the first elections held in Kurdistan in 1991."

The statement recalled the initial allocation of seats for minorities by the political leadership of the Kurdistan Front, which earmarked five seats for minority representation within a unified Kurdistan district.

The statement said the minority representatives now "face difficulty in accessing parliamentary seats under the election system established by the court, which divides the region into four electoral districts (Erbil, Al-Sulaymaniya, Halabja, and Duhok.)"

Referring to the Iraqi Constitution, the Party emphasized the political rights of minorities in Articles 49 and 125, including the representation in legislative, executive, and judicial authorities.

The Party called for addressing the repercussions of the court's decision based on these principles to "prevent the exacerbation of the crisis, ensure the integrity of the democratic process, and rectify the injustice inflicted upon the political representation of national minorities in the regional parliament."