Iraqi Kurdistan’s two-party ruling alliance has retained control of the autonomous region’s parliament, taking 57% of the vote in elections.

Masood Barzani was re-elected in the presidential poll with 69.6%, the preliminary results indicate.

He said he hoped the elections would be a “first step to solving issues with Baghdad”.

Tension has been high between the Kurds and the central government over the control of oil and disputed territory.

The winning coalition partners are Mr Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The reformist Change movement won 23% in Saturday’s elections, the preliminary results show.

Analysts say the coalition, led by Noshirwan Mustafa, put up stronger opposition than had been expected.

Tags: iraq, middle east

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Elections - General, Politics - Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.