SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Coalition has suspended election campaign across the Kurdistan Region on the fourth anniversary of the passing of Mam Jalal, its presidency said on Saturday.
“On the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the passing of President Mam Jalal, the presidency of the Kurdistan Coalition has decided to suspend election campaign for 24 hours,” it said in a statement.
It called on the candidates and cadres of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan And Change Movement (Gorran) to halt election campaign at 12 a.m. on Sunday for 24 hours.
The Kurdistan Coalition also called on media outlets affiliated to the PUK and Gorran to dedicate their programs to broadcast lives and struggles of late President Mam Jalal Talabani and his fellows, and “above all great leader Nawshirwan Mustafa”, who died in May 2017.
Former Iraqi President and PUK Secretary-General Mam Jalal died in Germany on October 3, 2017.
Talabani is known among the Kurds as Mam Jalal or Uncle Jalal.
He was the first elected non-Arab president of Iraq who oversaw the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talabani was elected as the Iraqi president in 2005 and re-elected for a second term in 2010.
He is also known for his pragmatic and compromising politics that set a balance between Iraq’s various components, including Arabs and Kurds, Shia and Sunni Arabs.
Talabani is portrayed as a Kurdish leader who sacrificed his entire life to achieve the cultural and national rights of the Kurds.
