The head of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, met with a group of Kurdish political figures to discuss the drafting of the Kurdistan Region constitution and the upcoming Iraqi elections. According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Barzani met separately with the leaders of the Jamaat-e-Adl of Kurdistan, the Islamic Union of Kurdistan, the Movement for Change (Goran), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kuridtan Socialist Party in Erbil and discussed the upcoming elections.
Asked about the coalition of Kurdish forces in the Iraqi elections, Barzani told reporters the new electoral system was not such that a coalition was needed at the current stage but the Kurdish parties should definitely be united after the elections.
He also stressed that serious efforts have been made to draft a Kurdistan Region Government (KRG) constitution, adding that he had consulted all forces in this regard and that the Regional Government parliament would soon determine the necessary mechanism for this issue.
Mona Qahwachi, a member of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Parliamentary heading board, said serious efforts were being made to finalize the constitution in the current parliamentary term. She said that almost 70 articles of the constitution had been agreed upon, but that the outbreak of the Covid-19 had prevented further meetings.
The Kurdistan Region, which has been governed autonomously since 1991 and was declared a federal government by the Iraqi constitution after 2003, has no constitutional right to do so. According to Article 120 of the Iraqi constitution, “each state must draft its own constitution, which sets out the structure of government and the powers of institutions and the mechanism for exercising these powers, and none of its articles should conflict with the Iraqi constitution.”
