Broadly united in previous elections, the Kurdish parties are preparing for the first time to compete with one another on opposing lists. Four key lists will compete for seats in the three governorates in the Kurdistan Region and disputed areas.

It is difficult to predict which list, if any, will take a majority of the seats, especially with stiff competition between the Change List and the Kurdish Alliance List. However, some observers think that the Alliance consisting of the two main parties (the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Kurdistan Patriotic Union) and some other allied small parties will win the most of the 41 seats allocated to the Kurdish governorates

In provincial elections is July 2009, the Kurdistan Alliance won 59 out of 100 seats in the total seats in Kurdish parliament and Sami Choruch, the leader of the Kurdistan Alliance list in Erbil, believes his list will perform to a similar standard in the general elections.

“The Kurdish Alliance will rank first and get a majority of seats and across the country, I expect Kurds to take at least 60 seats out of the 325 in the Iraqi parliament,” he said.

In the 2005 elections, the Kurdish Alliance won 53 seats of Iraq’s 275 seats. Nevertheless, many observers believe the Alliance will not get this number in the elections of March 7 due to the emergence of strong opposition in the province and the participation of the major Kurdish Islamic parties in independent lists.

The Change Movement competed well against The Kurdish Alliance in the July elections, winning 25% of the votes (25 seats). It is considered the strongest competitor for the Kurdistan Alliance. This is the first time that the Change Movement list, led by Nushirwan Mustafa, a former senior PUK leader, has been involved in the national elections in Iraq.

The spokesperson for the List, Goran Tawfiq expects the list to win a large number of votes.

“We will certainly get more votes than in the July 25 elections,” he says. “We expect to win votes from Kurds living in the Kurdistan Region but also we expect to get a majority of votes from Kurds from Kirkuk and other disputed areas participating in the elections, in addition to the votes of Kurds living abroad.”

In addition to the Kurdistan Alliance and the Change lists, two Islamic Kurdish parties are running independently.

The Kurdistan Islamic Union is one of the largest political Islamic organisations in Kurdistan. With recent amendments to the election law, allowing open lists, they expect to do well. They participated in the first Iraqi parliamentary elections as part of the Kurdistan Alliance List. In 2005, it participated individually and received five seats, while in July the party won six seats in elections for the Kurdistan Parliament.

The Kurdistan Islamic Group, is the fourth most popular list in the Kurdistan Region. Ali Bapir, the Emir of the party, was detained for more than a year by U.S. forces, accused of helping Islamic extremist groups.”

They hope to do better than their last electoral showing, when they took six seats. They participated in various guises in previous Iraqi elections. In the last elections they secured only one seat but took four in the provincial elections of last year.

There are major disagreements between the parties, particularly between The Change Movement and the Kurdish Patriotic Union, meaning that apart from running as separate lists, they will not work closely together in parliament after the elections. This weakens the overall position of Kurds in Baghdad and reduces their abilities to secure senior positions in government.

The Change Movement will not back Jalal Talabani, though the Kurdistan Alliance List considers him the only realistic Kurdish candidate for the position.

“We would have preferred one list of Kurds in these Iraqi parliamentary elections, but that hasn’t happened. It’s a great shame because it’s important to have a unified position for Kurds in Baghdad,” confirmed the Alliance’s leader in Erbil.

The Change Movement, for their part, claim no interest in senior government positions.

“There are a lot of senior positions for Kurds but they have no direct benefit to the people and the region of Kurdistan,” their spokesman said, adding, “We will try to choose effective representatives so that we can defend our Kurdish interests.”