Middle East News
Report: Incumbents set to win Kurdish elections
Jul 29, 2009, 9:32 GMT
Arbil, Iraq - With 85 per cent of the votes counted Wednesday, incumbents in Saturday's Iraqi Kurdish presidential and parliamentary elections appeared set to win by a comfortable margin.
According to figures published in Baghdad's al-Sabbah newspaper, incumbent Kurdish President Massoud Barzani was leading in results from Saturday's polls with 68.66 per cent of the vote.
A coalition of his Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Democratic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was set to win 55.84 per cent of seats in the new parliament, the paper reported.
Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission is expected to release official, preliminary results based on a full count of the vote Wednesday afternoon.
With 85 per cent of the votes counted, Barzani's closest challenger in the presidential race, Kamal Mirawadali, was trailing at 26.17 per cent, al-Sabbah said. The other candidates in the presidential race appeared set to receive less than 1 per cent each.
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