The Iraqi authorities decided on Tuesday to postpone the date of the provincial elections from November 6 to December 18, 10 years after they were held for the last time, according to an official statement issued by the Council of Ministers.

The statement indicated that "the Council of Ministers sets December 18 as the date for holding the provincial elections for the year 2023, in compliance with the ministerial platform adopted by the government, and approved by Parliament last October."

The authorities did not justify the reasons for postponing the poll.
These elections include 15 provinces out of 18, as there are three provinces within the autonomous Kurdistan region that are not included in the elections.

This will be the first local provincial council elections to take place in Iraq since April 2013, during which the lists of former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki topped the results. Prior to that, provincial council elections were held in 2009 only.

It was scheduled to take place in 2018, coinciding with the parliamentary elections at the time, but it was postponed more than once.

In the wake of unprecedented popular protests that reached their climax in the fall of 2019, the Iraqi parliament voted at the time to dissolve these councils and to vote to end their work, which is among the demands of the demonstrators.

Part of the opposition and civil society see these councils as a breeding ground for corruption.

Earlier, Representative Alaa Al-Rikabi, head of the Extension bloc emanating from the 2019 protests, objected to the return of the councils. At the time, he told Agence France-Presse, "The Iraqi people in general view the experience of the provincial councils as a failure, and it was one of the doors to corruption and did not produce anything."

According to the Iraqi constitution, the provincial councils have wide powers, as they are not subject to the control or supervision of any ministry or entity not linked to a ministry, and they have broad administrative and financial powers.