KDP claims first place in Iraq elections
Shafaq News – Al-Sulaymaniyah
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) asserted on Wednesday that it ranked first nationwide in Iraq’s 2025 parliamentary elections, citing preliminary figures indicating a clear rise in support.
Ali Hussein, head of the KDP’s organizational office for al-Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, and Raparin, said at a press conference attended by Shafaq News that the party “secured the highest number of votes across Iraq,” noting that its tally in al-Sulaymaniyah — the stronghold of its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) — increased by about 20,000 compared with the previous elections.
Both the KDP and PUK had fielded 30 candidates in Erbil, while in Duhok, the KDP led with 22 candidates against the PUK’s five. In al-Sulaymaniyah, the two parties competed head-to-head with 36 candidates each.
Hussein also criticized the PUK for “failing to take steps toward forming the Kurdistan Regional Government” — a persistent and disputed issue, although more than a year has passed since the Kurdish parliamentary elections — claiming that the party had been “confident of gaining more votes in the Iraqi parliamentary elections.”
Underlining that cooperation between Kurdish representatives in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region “serves everyone’s interests,” the official stressed that “the people of al-Sulaymaniyah do not reject the KDP but expect much from it,” expressing optimism that “a new phase of openness and coordination in the province is near.”
According to the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), voter turnout in the Iraqi elections exceeded 55%, with 12,009,453 voters participating out of 21,404,291 eligible citizens. Tuesday’s general vote recorded 10,909,637 ballots—about 54% of registered voters—while the special vote on November 9 for security personnel reached 82.5%, with 1,084,289 voters out of 1,313,980 eligible participants.
Read more: Iraq’s 2025 poll: +21M voters, new law, fading monitors, and fierce bloc rivalries
While the official results are expected to be announced today at 6:00 p.m. local time, Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani announced on Tuesday that the KDP had surpassed one million votes in preliminary counts of the general election.
