The shift inside the Kurdish camp in the disputed territories between the 2021 and the 11 November 2025 elections needs to be read against a change in the electoral system. In 2021, each province was divided into multiple electoral districts, which tended to favour locally entrenched networks. In 2025, each province became a single electoral district and seats were allocated under a modified Sainte-Laguë system with a 1.7 divisor, which increased the importance of broad coalitions and list engineering in turning votes into seats.

In Nineveh, the KDP remains the largest Kurdish actor in absolute terms, but both its vote share and its representation have slipped. In 2021, with around 874,000 valid votes cast, the KDP took 126,726 votes, about 14.5 percent of the provincial total, and converted that into 9 seats. The PUK, with only 15,318 votes (1.8 percent), still managed 2 seats. By 2025, total valid votes rose to roughly 1.35 million. The KDP’s vote climbed to 189,208 but its share edged down to around 14.0 percent, and its representation dropped sharply to 5 seats. The PUK’s vote rose to 56,346 (about 4.2 percent), a gain of 2.4 percentage points, yet its seat tally remained flat at 2. Nineveh therefore illustrates a key theme: KDP still leads among Kurds, but its ability to turn votes into seats has weakened, while PUK’s growing vote base is only partially reflected in its unchanged seat total.

Kirkuk is where the shift is most dramatic. In 2021, out of about 267,107 votes, the KDP won 49,538 votes (18.5 percent) and 2 seats, while the PUK secured 84,767 votes (31.7 percent) and 3 seats. By 2025, the electorate expanded to around 587,000 votes. The KDP’s raw vote rose to 59,294 but its share collapsed to 10.1 percent, and it was reduced to a single seat. The PUK more than doubled its vote to 178,629 yet saw its share dip slightly to 30.4 percent because of the larger pool of voters; even so, it increased its representation from 3 to 4 seats. In other words, in Kirkuk the PUK has consolidated its status as the dominant Kurdish force and has turned its numerical advantage into a more pronounced seat lead, while the KDP’s relative decline in both share and seats is stark.

Diyala shows a different but equally telling pattern, where tactical positioning matters as much as raw numbers. In 2021, with about 471,000 votes cast, the KDP took 8,873 votes (1.9 percent) and won no seats, whereas the PUK, with 21,722 votes (4.6 percent), managed to convert that into 1 seat. In the November 2025 election, turnout rose to roughly 562,000. KDP support actually fell to 7,921 votes and 1.4 percent, yet the party managed to secure a seat by placing its candidate inside an Arab-led alliance. The PUK, by contrast, increased its vote to 29,044 and lifted its share to 5.2 percent, but it ended up with zero seats. Diyala thus underlines how, in the new electoral context, PUK’s gradual strengthening in raw Kurdish votes does not always translate into representation, while KDP can still “punch above its weight” if it is better embedded in winning coalitions.

In Salahaddin, Kurdish parties remain marginal in provincial terms, but the story of seats again cuts against the raw numbers. In 2021, with around 425,000 votes cast, the KDP took 1,838 votes (0.4 percent) and no seats, while the PUK secured 12,334 votes (2.9 percent) and won 1 seat. By 2025, total votes rose to roughly 554,000. The KDP edged up to 2,099 votes, still around 0.4 percent, and remained seatless. The PUK’s vote increased to 14,843, about 2.7 percent of the total, but on current allocations it has no seat from Salahaddin despite running within a broader alliance. Its candidate finished second on that list, behind the governor of Salahaddin, who is currently in line to take the seat. If the governor ultimately chooses to remain in his provincial post and not go to parliament, the seat would instead pass to the PUK candidate. For now, however, the formal outcome is that a party which once held a seat from Salahaddin and has grown in raw votes stands temporarily unrepresented there.

Taken together, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Diyala and Salahaddin confirm the broader pattern. Between 2021 and the November 11, 2025 election, KDP’s total vote in these four provinces rose in absolute terms but its share slipped, and it either lost seats (as in Nineveh and Kirkuk) or had to rely on alliances to gain them (as in Diyala). The PUK more than doubled its aggregate vote and now slightly overtakes KDP in combined vote share across the disputed territories, and in Kirkuk it has translated that into a clear seat advantage. Yet in Diyala and Salahaddin, its improved numbers are not automatically rewarded with seats, reflecting the importance of list design and alliance choices. The overall picture is of a Kurdish map in the disputed territories where PUK is structurally stronger than in 2021, the KDP’s dominance has been eroded, and the translation of votes into seats is increasingly mediated by tactical alignments rather than raw Kurdish vote totals alone.