Immediately after midnight on 12 February, in Erbil city, political parties and candidates started pasting their posters on the streets and walls. Billboards, banners and posters have sprouted up and some political parties have held rallies and driven around in cars, waving their parties’ flags, honking their horns and addressing crowds through loudspeakers. In Erbil, like everywhere else in Iraq, the general election campaign began.

But campaigning in the Kurdistan Region’s capital is altogether quieter than elsewhere in the region and much of the rest of the country. The Iraqi High Electoral Commission says that since campaigning began, election-related violence in Erbil is the lowest anywhere in the country. On the streets, there are more posters advertising a concert in the city by Elissa, a Lebanese singer, than any of the candidates.

Much of the campaigning in Erbil is from opposition parties, such as the Change Movement (Goran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU). Their supporters drive around in cars, waving their parties flags, honking the horns and speaking through the speakers. These groups also have the most posters and banners hanging in the city.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) headed by Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Region, is limiting its campaigning in the city, which is traditionally a stronghold for the party. Few KDP flags fly in the city and most KDP campaigning comes through media advertisements and public rallies.

The quiet in Erbil is in marked contrast to Sulaimaniyah, where competition between the PUK and Goran is much closer and tension is heightened. Since the election campaign started, Sulaimaniyah city has seen a number of armed clashes between supporters of the Kurdistan List and Goran. Some people have been wounded.

"What happens in Sulaimaniyah is not in the interest of Kurdistan," said Jawad Qadir, a spokesperson for the KDP. “It has nothing to do with the election. After the split, the two parties, which were once one, are now both fighting each other to survive.”

The split, Qadir believes, is of no help to the Kurds.

“The KDP sees this election as a competition among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiite, not among Kurdish parties,” he says. “For the KDP, the post-election time is the most important, deciding on coalitions with other Iraqi political entities and forming the next Iraqi government.”

As Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan Region, it is very important for the region and Iraq as a whole that the elections campaigns continue calmly. Any violence will have knock-on effects.

Four political entities are campaigning in Erbil city. Alongside the Kurdistani List and Goran, the Kurdistan Islamic Union and the Kurdistan Islamic Group are also competing for seats. All the parties firmly emphasise the return of disputed areas including the controversial city of Kirkuk to the region. They also promote plans for reform and for better services, particularly in favour of the Kurdistan Region.

Kurdistan List, in its electoral program, says Kurdistan’s people have the constitutional right of oil ownership. They promote heavy national investment in reconstructing the region’s economic infrastructure. They demand partnership in the Iraqi government and authority in arranging relations between the Kurdistan region and the federal government.

Goran seeks reform of the security system, promoting independent, professional security services completely detached from political parties, while also focusing on the rebuilding of civil society through strong relations with NGOs.

The two Islamic parties, The Kurdistan Islamic Union and the Kurdistan Islamic Group promote a moral program, with focuses on fighting corruption and returning an Islamic identity to the Iraqi community.

In total, in Erbil Province, where 900,000 people are eligible to vote, a total of 148 candidates from 9 different political entities will compete for 14 parliamentary seats. On Sunday, 7 March, their votes will be counted, along with those in the rest of Iraq’s 18 provinces, where a total of 6,000 candidates will compete for 325 seats.