Abnaa Al-Nahrain boycotts the elections of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament of Iraq planned for September 30th, 2018.
This was announced in a statement issued by the party on Tuesday, September 11, 2018, in which the party cited the reasons for its decision..
Statement
Since the early 1990s, our Chaldo-Assyrian people in the Kurdistan region of Iraq was forced to face some detrimental challenges to its very existence in its historic homeland. It was never considered a true partner even when it comes to issues related to their living conditions, national interests, and their future.
It is unfortunate that our political partners in the region have considered us as guests or under their guardianship, especially the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as the ruling and the most influential party in the areas where the majority of our people resides in Dahuk and Erbil. This was reflected on ground through many injustices that our people faced on daily basis.
For instance, our people could not freely exercise their administrative right to choose those who represent them in managing the areas where they form the majority. If this happened, it would have been coerced to the advantage of the ruling party, not to mention the trespassing on our people’s lands, which are documented by dozens of cases. In some of these cases, court orders have been issued in favor of the real landowners but have not been implemented on ground. . This in addition to other injustices that have exacerbated and increased the suffering of our people by meddling in our internal affairs such as our right to choose how our people should be named, adding fuel to the fire and threaten our internal unity, setting up one party against another. . We acknowledge the reality that we as a nation suffer fragmentation and division, at the level of political and relious fronts that paved the road for such interferences. We expect our partners to deal with our issues in a positive and collaborative way.
In recent years, in light of the continuous suffering, new alarming trends have surfaced, the undermining of our political representation of our in the legislative institutions. It is clear that KDP has intervened in the selection of representatives of our people. This has been evident in the previous parliamentary elections of the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad. The most recent of which is the elections of the fourth Iraqi Parliament for the year 2018. Thousands of votes have been pumped from within the Kurdish and Shiaa blocs for the benefit of some candidates of our people who are loyal or members of KDP or the Shiite lists within the quota lists. In order to distort the will of our people, and thus empty the concept of quota of its real value for which it was established – to preserve the right of the Chaldo-Assyrians to elect their representatives without interference from others. Prominent leaders in KDP have publicly admitted in the media their winning of some of the quota seats dedicated to our people. The current quota law was the legal loophole that gave the justification for such interferences, which allows people other than the Chaldo-Assyrians to participate in the voting for the quota lists.
As we are now approaching the elections of the Regional Parliament to be held on September 30th, there are many indications that it will be like the national Iraqi elections which took place a few months ago in terms of fraud and dishonesty, since the voter register/ list was not properly updated and it contains thousands of fake voter names which was referred to by many officials in the region. This is in addition to the confirmed information about the intention to interfere in the votes of the quota since the amendment of the quota law as requested by our people representatives in the parliament was not considered.
Therefore, despite the demand of our people representatives in the Regional Parliament to amend this law, and despite of the protest in front of the Parliament building on July 30, 2018 for this purpose in particular, our legitimate requests have been disregarded. Additionally, there was no response to the jointly written memo presented by Abnaa Al-Nahrain Party and the Assyrian Democratic Movement on September 8, 2018 to postpone the date of the elections in order to allow for the amendment of the elections law, update the voter register and deal with other issues impacting the elections process.
Therefore, we in Abnaa Al-Nahrain Party decided to boycott the elections because of upholding the current election law in relation to the quota, the blatant interference from outside the Chaldo-Assyrian national house in the votes of the quota, all intended to limit the vote to within the Chaldo-Assyrian people.
We also ask our people to boycott the elections in order to preserve their dignity and their true voice. We pledge to our people to remain steadfast in our advocacy for them even without being present in the parliament. Our resolve to fight was never for positions but for the legitimate rights of our people and for living with dignity on the land of our forefathers.
in Salute to our people.
Abnaa Al-Nahrain Party
September 11, 2018