Six Iraqi Kurds candidates have finally registered to compete for the presidency in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region due to be held on July 25, an official from the Independent High Electoral Commission said on Tuesday.

"We have six candidates officially presented their nomination requests to the regional headquarters of the electoral commission in the city of Arbil," Ali Qadir, head of the electoral commission in Kurdistan region, said.

He said that the six candidates are Massud Barzani, the current president of Kurdish regional government, Halow Ibrahim Ahmed, a brother of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's wife, Dr. Kamal Mirawidly, a London-based scholar, Hussein Garmiyani, a businessman, Ahmed Mohammed Rasul, also known as Safen Haji Sheikh Mohammed and Ahmed Kurda.

The deadline for receiving nominations requests for Kurdistan region presidential election was at 6:00 p.m. on Monday after being extended for two hours, Qadir said.

On Monday afternoon, Qadir said that four candidates had registered to run for the presidency, but after the two-hour extension the number rose to six.

The Kurdish elections for parliament and the presidency will be held on the same day of July 25, according to the regional constitution.

Over 2.5 million Iraqi Kurds are eligible to vote in the coming poll to elect more than 40 political entities who will run for 111 seats in the regional parliament.

The two main Kurdish parties, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, will run the parliamentary elections on one joint list.

The three regional provinces of Arbil, Duhuk and Sulaimaniyah, along with the disputed province of Kirkuk, did not participate in the provincial elections held on January 31 in the other 14 provinces of Iraq.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2009)