A Kurdish man casts a ballot during parliamentary elections in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, Iraq, Sept. 30, 2018 (DPA photo by Tobias Schreiner via AP Images).

Talks are ongoing to form a governing coalition in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, after no party gained an outright majority in parliamentary elections held Sept. 30. The Kurdistan Democratic Party won 45 out of 111 seats in the local Parliament, while its junior coalition partner, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, came in second with 21 seats. Yet opposition parties have rejected the results, claiming violations in the electoral process. In an interview with WPR, Renad Mansour, a research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Regional […]