Kurdistan Region – Iraq Enters Political
Quagmire?
Hiwa Zandi
Kurdistan Region of Iraq is at the behest of an emerging political
crisis as the political tension over forming the new government after the September
2013 parliamentary election is procrastinating. The tension has reached a level
that has warranted regional States intervention, complicating the impasse even
further.
The predicament couldn’t be at a worse timing when much of
the region is locked in deep-seated turmoil from Anbar and Fallujah to the
borders of Syria, yielding the likelihood of expanding the conflict into the Kurdistan
Region.
According to a local press, Levin, Peshmarga, the
armed forces of the Kurdistan Region, have been put on high alert after al-Qaeda
terrorist fighters linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant entered the
predominantly Kurdish region of Khanaqin, a disputed area between the Kurdistan
Region and Central Government in Baghdad adjacent to the current administrative
borders of the Kurdistan Region.[1]
On the surface, the political impasse lingers over the division
of important posts of the new government between the two ruling parties,
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and
the previous opposition parties, in particular Movement of Change (Gorran).
This is because the opposition parties have decided to join the new government
as no party could win a clear majority to form the government.
At the core, however, the issue goes beyond the distribution
of posts to the underlying challenge against the long established two parties’
supremacy in the Kurdistan Region.
For decades, the two ruling parties enjoyed equal circulation
of power within the Kurdistan Regional Government - since the region first became
autonomous in 1991. Both parties further formalized the power sharing
arrangement in a confidential agreement in 2007 referred to as the “Strategic Agreement”.
The agreement reflected the apprehension that both parties
shared equal support of more than 90% of the constituencies as shown in the
1992 and 2005 Kurdistan regional parliamentary elections.
However the September 2013 changed the equation as the opposition
parties won 44% of the general contested seats (44 seats), making Gorran (24
Seats) as the second largest party in the Kurdistan region after the KDP (38
seats).
Thus Gorran’s rising political power at the expense of
dwindling PUK eminence that ranked third (18 seats) in the election has thus aggravated
the political tension.
PUK for its part has not submitted to the balance of power
being shifted in favour of Gorran within the new government and the green zone.
As PUK has military control of the green zone, it has emphasized its political eminence
regardless of the election outcome. Adnan Mufti, the PUK politburo member,
recently stressed that “PUK’s [political] position and magnitude cannot be
measured through its number of seats”[2].
Mufti further added that the current political situation in Kurdistan requires
PUK maintain its strategic eminence.[3]
PUK however must compel KDP to uphold to the principles of
the Strategic Agreement to maintain
its eminence within the regional government.
KDP on the other hand faces a paradoxical situation. Whilst
KDP wishes to maintain its strategic relation with PUK, it cannot ignore Gorran
and other opposition parties.
As KDP will be leading the new government, for winning the
largest block of seats, it would
confront significant hurdles from Gorran and other opposition parties if they take
the opposition bench and do not join the new government. Therefore, KDP is
forced to forge a new alliance with Gorran and other opposition parties to lead
a multi-party government, even at the expense of cracking the principles of the
Strategic Agreement.
Such an arrangement however would not delight Iran as the
risk of PUK losing its preeminence would also mean Iran losing influence in the
Kurdistan region and consequently inability to counter balance Turkey in the
region. The recent joint PUK-KDP visit to Iran (12.01.2014) was an Iranian-PUK attempt
to exert pressure on the KDP to maintain the principles of the Strategic
Agreement.
But foreign intervention may make the matter even worse. The
opposition parties are already calling it a retraction to the democratic
pathway of the Kurdistan Region. Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish political
figure and member of the Iraqi parliament brand it as a “mistake”. He further stated
that “it is a shame that external interventions go that far”[4].
The question is therefore whether a unified multi-party government
will be formed on the basis of the election outcome or the interests of the individual
political parties or that of the regional States.
These conflicting interests are proving hard to reconcile the
political parties. If brave and calculated steps are not taken in favour of
democratic principles, the region could breed a political crisis of violence
and instability.
Kurdistan Region cannot afford instability and political
crisis especially at a time when political changes are sweeping through the
Middle East and much of Iraq is grappled in violence.
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