ASIA/IRAQ - Chaldean Patriarch to Christians in Kurdistan: present yourselves united in the next elections

Wednesday, 13 June 2018 middle east oriental churches politics religious minorities elections

shafaaq.com

IRAQ

2024-03-25
Chaldean Patriarch Sako: Holy Week is "the time we need"

2024-03-14
Abolition of the quota of seats reserved for minorities in the Autonomous region of Kurdistan. Christian parties appeal to President Abdul Latif Rashid

2024-02-20
Patriarch Sako, message to the Chaldeans: Iraqi Christians are also infected by sectarianism

2024-02-08
Patriarch Sako, message for Lent: in the time of fasting, may the Holy Spirit heal and protect our hearts from the darkness of the world

2024-01-18
Patriarch Sako calls for withdrawal of sectarian militias from the Nineveh Plain

2023-07-05
Heads of Churches and Christian communities in Iraq: the burning of the Koran in Stockholm is an "atrocious and despicable" act

Erbil (Agenzia Fides) - The next elections for the parliament of the Autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan are scheduled for September 30, but already now Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako addresses the whole "Christian component" of that autonomous Region inviting them to concentrate on a single list of candidates.
In an appeal to the Christians of Iraqi Kurdistan, released in recent days by the Patriarchate and sent to Agenzia Fides, the Primate of the Chaldean Church refers to the experience - in his opinion not reassuring - of the recent political election of May 12, where the multiplicity of the lists that contended for the support and the delegation of the Christian component led to a great dispersion of votes, allowing even organized Shiite or Kurdish groups to interfere in the competition to assign the 5 parliamentary seats reserved for Christians. That negative experience - underlines the Chaldean Patriarch, who will be created Cardinal by Pope Francis on June 28th - should push all the leaders and the militants of political acronyms linked to the Christian communities to adopt "a new approach, different from the past. In this regard, the Patriarch invites the various political and social groups linked to the various local Christian churches and communities to consult each other in order to gather their candidates in a single list, and also to ask the Government of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan to issue a law that limits voters of Christian faith the vote to assign the parliamentary seats reserved for Christians.
As reported by Fides (see Fides 21/5/2018), on 12 May two of the 5 seats reserved for Christians in the national elections were won by candidates from the "Babylon Brigades" movement. Circles close to some Christian candidates, especially linked to the Assyrian Democratic Movement, who achieved disappointing results in the elections and will not manage to enter Parliament, announce appeals and raise suspicions on the election response.. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 13/6/2018)