SULAIMANI (ESTA) — As many as 331,605 voters cast ballots for special voting in Iraq’s early elections in the Kurdistan Region on Friday, according to the electoral commission.
Around 1.2 million members of the Iraqi and Kurdish forces, displaced persons and prisoners cast their ballots for special voting across Iraq, according to the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).
More than 225,850 members of the Kurdish forces are eligible to vote during the special voting in the Kurdistan Region, the IHEC’s office in the Region said.
Over 105,750 displaced persons who are settled in the camps in the Region will also vote on Friday, it added.
There are 181 polling stations, of which 121 are for the security forces, the IHEC stated. Sixty polling places are dedicated for displaced persons and the other two are for prisoners in Duhok and Sulaimani.
In Duhok, as many as 51,022 members of the security and Peshmerga forces as well as 69,439 internally displaced persons (IDPs) will vote on Friday.
There are 28 polling stations for the security forces and 31 stations for the IDPs.
Up to 90,054 members of the security forces and Peshmerga will vote during the special voting day in 52 polling stations in Erbil, the IHEC said. As many as 25,200 IDPs will also cast ballots in 20 polling places in the province.
There are 84,775 members of the security and Peshmerga forces who are also eligible to vote in 41 polling places on Friday, according to the IHEC office in the Region.
As many as 11,115 displaced persons will also vote in nine polling stations in Sulaimani.
Iraqi voters are to elect a new parliament on Sunday in the fifth such vote since a U.S.-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
This year nationals living abroad will not be voting.
A total of 329 seats are up for grabs in the election, which was moved forward from 2022 as a concession to youth-led pro-democracy protests that erupted in late 2019.
There are fears voter turnout could drop below the 44.5 percent figure registered in 2018.
More than 25 million citizens are eligible to vote. They are supposed to present a biometric card for what was conceived as a fully electronic voting process.
More than 3,240 candidates are in the running, including 950 women.
One quarter of seats are reserved for female candidates, and nine for minorities including Christians and Yazidis.
