Authorities in northeastern Syria postpone municipal elections until August at the request of several parties

June 7 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The High Electoral Commission of Northeastern Syria, a territory controlled mainly by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia coalition, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), announced this Thursday the postponement of the municipal elections until August at the request of various political parties.

“In response to the demands of the political parties and alliances participating in the electoral process, and in the interest of implementing the electoral process in a democratic manner, the High Electoral Commission of Northeast Syria has decided to postpone the date of the planned elections for the 11th of this month (June)”, reads a statement shared by the pro-Kurdish news agency ANHA.

The organizations that have requested this measure are the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the SDF, the People’s and Women’s Alliance for Freedom, Together for Better Services and the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria, mainly for the “limited “time” to make political propaganda and due to the lack of contacts with international organizations to supervise the process.

It should be noted that at the beginning of the month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that the local elections called in the Rojava region or Syrian Kurdistan are a hoax to proclaim its independence from Syria and become a “terrorist state.”

In that sense, he warned that Turkey “will never allow the creation” of a Kurdish State in northern Syria and Iraq, and that the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, in which these groups had great weight, is no longer a “pretext” to avoid ending them.

Elections are called in the provinces of Hasaka, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and eastern Aleppo. From that area, a joint statement from 33 parties have denounced the “continuous threats” of the “Turkish regime” regarding intervention and have stressed that none of the parties participating in the elections have the secession of Syria in their program.