Assyrians in KRI say ‘no point’ in partaking in upcoming elections
The Word | Oct. 15, 2024
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Members of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syriac Christian community in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region say there is “no point” in voting in the upcoming regional polls scheduled for October 20, citing what they call voter manipulation as the foremost factor for their decision.
Iraqi Kurdistan is set to hold regional elections on October 20, two years after its originally scheduled date. The elections come amid political turmoil between the region’s ruling Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), on various issues, including a failed consensus on minority quota seats that hindered the vote from taking place as scheduled in 2022.
Just ahead of KRI Parliamentary elections, Assyrians in the semi-autonomous region are despondent about the vote, concerned that their three seats – one in Erbil, one in Sulaimani, and one in Duhok – will be once again unattainable for popular candidates and claimed by Kurdish and Shiite-backed candidates.
““There is no choice left for us here but to leave our lands and seek a better life abroad””
“Tell me why should I vote? I gave up on change a long time ago, and our situation keeps getting worse with successive elections,” David Benyamin, an Assyrian resident of Erbil’s Christian-majority Ankawa district, told The Word. “They have stolen our voice. They are so greedy that they chose to not even let us have one or two true candidates. I will not waste my time and go vote, there is no point.”
Minority seats cut
In February, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court, the highest in the country, ruled all 11 minority quota seats in the then-111-seat Iraqi Kurdistan parliament unconstitutional. Those seats had been reserved for the region’s ethnic minorities, with five for Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syriacs; five to Turkmens; and one to Armenians.
After three months of negotiations, Iraq’s top court in May granted five seats for minorities across three provinces in Iraqi Kurdistan. These seats are included in the new 100-seat regional legislature. Across the Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah governorates, Christians are now entitled to three quota seats.
Declining regional turnout
Despite the adjustment, voters are expected to be largely unmotivated to venture to the polls. The sentiment is part of a decline in voter turnout across the Kurdistan Region over the past few election cycles. In 2018, voter turnout in the regional parliamentary elections was 58 percent, the lowest in the KRI’s history and a steep decline from 87 percent in the first regional parliamentary elections in 1992.
Srud Maqdasy, a former MP in the Kurdistan parliament and member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa) politburo, said that Zowaa expects most Christians to decide against heading to the polls.
“The Christians feel that they have been oppressed by the federal court and that they have had their quota rights taken away,” Maqdasy told The Word.
Outside the Saint John the Baptist Assyrian Church in Erbil, another resident who identified as Sargon Ashuraya labeled the ruling Kurdish parties “thieves” and said that he would boycott the vote.
The KDP, which rules Erbil and Duhok provinces – where the majority of Iraqi Kurdistan’s Christians reside – has faced allegations of exploiting the minority vote by mobilizing thousands of security forces to vote for Assyrian and Chaldean candidates.
The winning candidates from the minority quota affiliated with the KDP receive thousands of votes from areas with little to no minority presence.
The Sulaimani-dominant PUK also receives criticism for applying similar tactics, albeit on a smaller scale. They’re seen as maneuvers by big parties in Iraq detrimental to minority chances of obtaining proper representation in both the Iraqi and Kurdish parliaments.
“There is no choice left for us here but to leave our lands and seek a better life abroad,” said Shmoni Toma, another resident. “We are tired, and elections will change nothing.”
Editor’s note: The author of this report has requested anonymity due to concerns for their personal welfare or security. Content in this report has been verified by The Word unless indicated otherwise.
Edited by Yasmeen Altaji.