IRBIL
The official electioneering has started in the regional administration in north of Iraq for the parliamentary election to be held on September 21.
The political parties, The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Movement for Change (Goran), Yekgirtu and Komala Islam gave information for the election whereas Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) kept its silence.
There is a strong competition between the parties of PUK and Goran that focused on Sulaymaniyah.
On the other hand, KDP aims the voters in Irbil and Duhok.
Elections for the Kurdistan National Assembly are held every four years.
The latest elections for the parliament of Kurdistan were held on 25 July 2009.
The leading political alliance was the Kurdistani List which consisted of the two main political parties, PUK and PDK, and which won 59 seats.
The new less popular competing movement, the Gorran List ("Gorran" means "change" in Kurdish) headed by Nawshirwan Mustafa won 25 seats, a quarter of all parliamentary seats.
The Gorran List had a strong showing in the city of Sulaymaniyah and the Sulaymaniyah governorate, which was previously considered PUK's stronghold.
The Reform List, consisting of 4 parties, won 13 seats. In addition, the Islamic movement won 2 seats and 11 seats were reserved for minority parties Turkmen (5 seats), Assyrians (5 seats) and Armenians (1 seat).
The regional administration in the north of Iraq is a parliamentary democracy with a regional assembly that consists of 111 seats.
The current president is Massoud Barzani, who was initially elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009.
The three governorates of Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah comprise around 40,000 square kilometres and have a population of 5.5 million.
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