Printer-friendly VersionThe Kurdish Globe
The Islamic Group in Kurdistan (IGK) on Monday announced they will run alone for the Iraqi Parliament elections of mid January. This follows a similar decision by the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU). Three Kurdish parties have now decided to run as individual parties in the election.
"The IGK preferred the Kurdistan Region parties to take on the coming Iraqi elections as a united front to enhance the Kurdish position in Iraq, but this front could not be established; thus, the IGK decided to take part in that election as an independent list," announced Abdul-Sattar Majeed, IGK politburo member and spokesman.
He put the blame on the two regional governing parties the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan for not being able to unite all the Region's parties as one single front.
He also said that the two parties didn't invite the IGK to form an alliance, and thus they made their decision.
The Kurdish Islamic parties had already failed to form an alliance gathering the IGK, KIU, and the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan. This came as the KIU on October 31 decided to run for the Iraqi elections alone as they did in election 2005 when they won five of Iraqi Parliament's 275 seats.
The Goran (Change) Movement is another political power that has already decided to individually compete for Iraqi Parliament seats.
Service and Reform Split
The KIU and the IGK, which were allied with two other secular parties in the Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections on July 25, announced the fracture of the alliance that took 13 of the regional Parliament's 111 seats.
The fracture came as the two Islamic parties declined to participate in the Kurdistan Regional Government and instead decided to remain as opposition. Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party and the Kurdistan Toilers Party of Qadir Aziz joined the newly established KRG Cabinet by taking one ministry each.
They have already distributed the 13 seats among them as six seats for the KIU, four for the IGK, two for the KSDP, and a seat for the KTP.