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Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party Says It Will Boycott Parliamentary Election 

Members of the Peshmerga are seen on the outskirts of Kirkuk with a poster of Masoud Barzani in the background. (EPA file photo)
Members of the Peshmerga are seen on the outskirts of Kirkuk with a poster of Masoud Barzani in the background. (EPA file photo)
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Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party Says It Will Boycott Parliamentary Election 

Members of the Peshmerga are seen on the outskirts of Kirkuk with a poster of Masoud Barzani in the background. (EPA file photo)
Members of the Peshmerga are seen on the outskirts of Kirkuk with a poster of Masoud Barzani in the background. (EPA file photo)

The ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said on Monday it would boycott a parliamentary election in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq scheduled to be held in June in protest over a ruling issued by the federal supreme court.

The northern region's dominant KDP, which is headed by Masoud Barzani, said in a statement that Iraq’s federal court had violated the constitution and undermined regional authorities following a ruling in February that amended the Kurdish region's election law.

Iraq's federal supreme court ruled to cancel 11 seats reserved for minority groups, reducing the number of regional parliament seats to 100.

The February ruling also changed the electoral system to divide the Kurdistan region into four constituencies instead of the single-constituency system adopted in the previous elections in 2018, prompting the KDP to reject it as unconstitutional.

The federal court ruling also gave authority to the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) to organize and oversee regional elections instead of the Kurdish regional election commission.

The ruling by the federal court came after a lawsuit by KDP's historic rival and junior coalition partner in government, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), according to a court document seen by Reuters and the party's lawyers.

A prominent member of the KDP told Asharq Al-Awsat that the boycott decision was taken after the party “realized that the federal supreme court had become a political player.”

He hoped that the move would “succeed in addressing the unconstitutional standing of this court and remove its legitimacy before we slip into a more centralized system.”

He warned that the boycott could lead to the postponement of the elections, through intra-Kurdish agreement, urging “Shiite and Sunni partners to amend the path taken by the court.”

The KDP has for month accused the federal supreme court of yielding to political agendas of some influential Shiite forces. It charges that the majority of its rulings against Kurdistan are politically motivated against the region’s constitutional standing.

US Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski expressed concern over the KDP decision to boycott the elections.

“We are concerned by KDP’s announcement to boycott the Iraqi Kurdistan Region elections. We urge the Government of Iraq & the Kurdistan Regional Government to ensure that elections are free, fair, transparent, & credible.” Romanowski said on social media platform X on Monday.

The PUK is committed to holding Kurdistan parliamentary elections on June 10, PUK spokesman Saadi Ahmed said in a statement following the PDK decision.

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Syria’s New Information Minister Promises Free Press

Syrian Minister of Information Mohamed al-Omar speaks to members of the media during a meeting in Damascus on December 31, 2024. (AFP)
Syrian Minister of Information Mohamed al-Omar speaks to members of the media during a meeting in Damascus on December 31, 2024. (AFP)
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Syria’s New Information Minister Promises Free Press

Syrian Minister of Information Mohamed al-Omar speaks to members of the media during a meeting in Damascus on December 31, 2024. (AFP)
Syrian Minister of Information Mohamed al-Omar speaks to members of the media during a meeting in Damascus on December 31, 2024. (AFP)

Syria's minister of information in the country's transitional government told AFP he is working towards a free press and committed to "freedom of expression", after decades of tight control under the country's former rulers.

"We are working to consolidate freedoms of the press and expression that were severely restricted" in areas controlled by the former government of Bashar al-Assad, said the minister, Mohamed al-Omar, after opposition fighters on December 8 ended more than five decades of rule by the Assad clan.

Syria's ruling Baath party and the Assad family dynasty heavily curtailed all aspects of daily life, including freedom of the press and expression with the media a tool of those in power.

Reporters Without Borders, a freedom of information watchdog, ranked Syria second-last on its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, ahead only of Eritrea and behind Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

"There was a heavy restriction on freedom of the press and expression under the regime which practiced censorship. In the period to come we are working on the reconstruction of a media landscape that is free, objective and professional," Omar said during an interview with AFP on Tuesday.

He is part of the interim administration installed in Damascus by the victorious opposition coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The group has its origins in the Syrian branch of the Al-Qaeda group and is designated a terrorist organization by numerous governments, but has sought to soften its image in recent years.

Diplomats from around the region and from the West have made contact with Syria's new rulers, who have also vowed to protect the country's religious and ethnic minorities.

Omar was previously minister of information in the self-proclaimed Salvation Government, the civil administration set up in 2017 by HTS in the opposition holdout of Idlib province, in Syria's northwest. It was from Idlib that the opposition began their lightning advance towards Damascus, 13 years into the country's civil war.

After the conflict erupted in 2011 with the government's brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, Assad tightened restrictions on independent journalism.

- A different way -

"We don't want to continue in the same way, that is, have an official media whose aim is to polish the image of the ruling power," Omar said.

Following Assad's overthrow and flight to Moscow, Syrian media outlets which had trumpeted his regime's glories quickly adopted a revolutionary fervor.

Omar said the new administration wants to "reduce bureaucracy and facilitate the work of foreign press teams" who were intensely scrutinized by Assad's government and had difficulty obtaining visas to work freely.

On December 13, the Information Ministry released a statement saying "media workers who were part of the war and propaganda machine of the fallen Assad regime and contributed directly or indirectly to promoting its crimes," would be "held to account".

But Bassam Safar, head of the Damascus branch of the anti-Assad Syrian journalists' union, previously based abroad, said earlier that no media worker should be held responsible "unless it is proven that they took part in the bloodshed."

That, he said, "is the business of the courts."

Saffar said the Syrian people should reconcile with their journalists, to establish "a new media environment built on freedom" and human rights.

On Tuesday Omar held an exchange with dozens of Syrian journalists to discuss the transition.

"We want media reflecting Syrian cultures in their diversity, reflecting their ambitions, and that transmit their preoccupations and serve as a link between the people and the administration", Omar told AFP.