Iraqi commission announces Kirkuk vote results, Kurdish PUK comes first
A polling station during a vote on Kurdistan’s independence from Iraq.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraq’s electoral commission has announced preliminary results of votes for parliamentary elections in Kirkuk, ending disputes over earlier results that prompted calls for manual recounts.
The electoral commission said the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan came first in the mixed Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen province. Second came the Arab Alliance, and the Turkmen Front came third.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said earlier today that the only solution for the dispute over anticipated results in Kirkuk was to conduct a recount.
Iraqi parliament elections, the first after victory over Islamic State militants in December, were held on Saturday. On election day, Kirkuk’s governor, Rakan al-Jubouri, said the adopted electronic counting system produced controversial results, urging a manual recount to avert sectarian or ethnic clash.
Sulaimaniya, another Iraqi province falling inside Kurdistan Region, had seen clashes on election day driven by objections by Arab and Turkmen groups to results showing PUK won most votes.
The commission declared vote results for the rest of provinces on Monday, saying Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Saeroon list coming first, al-Fatah list coming second and PM Abadi’s al-Nasr coming third.