Nechirvan would be the party’s candidate for president if the position was reactivated, KDP Spokesman Mahmoud Mohammed said in a press conference on Monday, December 3.

He is the current prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, while his cousin Masrour is Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region’s Security Council.

The KDP's foreign relations office said in a tweet that the presidency would be decided by a vote in parliament, where the party holds a 45-seat plurality. The temporary speaker has not confirmed this assertion, NRT reported.

Chaired by KDP President Masoud Barzani, the party’s Leadership Council held a morning meeting to discuss its government formation strategy, but reportedly did not discuss the organizational structure of the new cabinet.

“How many deputies will the Prime Minister have? How many ministries will the new government have,” the KDP spokesman asked rhetorically, before saying that the council has not yet dealt with those considerations.

Without divulging details of the party’s thinking on how ministerial seats would be allocated, he added that “the formation of the government won’t be hard and we have discussed our provisos of the other parties.”

The KDP also announced that Hoshyar Zebari, Azad Barwari, Jaafar Emniki, Firsat Sofi, and Hemin Hawrami would make up the delegation that will negotiate with the other parties.

Earlier, a KDP Politburo member, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told NRT Digital Media that the new government will likely be formed before the end of 2018.

Reporter’s code: 50101