By: Patrick Martin
Key Take-Away: The political crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan caused by delayed
Presidential elections descended into outright political violence on October 8.
Regional President Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP),
has continued to hold office even though his term expired on August 19 and no
elections have occurred. Other Iraqi Kurdish political parties, particularly Gorran
(Change), the KDP’s main political rival, tried to contest the extension of
Barzani’s term and leverage concessions in return for his continuation in
office. Popular protests against the government turned violent on October 9
after multi-party talks collapsed the day before. On October 11, the KDP
ordered the speaker and other members of the Kurdish parliament from Gorran to
leave the regional capital of Arbil, declaring that Gorran was no longer a part
of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Gunmen loyal to the KDP barred a
Gorran convoy from entering Arbil. This dangerous maneuver by the KDP to
solidify Barzani’s position as regional president has escalated tensions within
the KRG and serious political violence may protract. Unless negotiations
between the KDP and the opposition parties reaches a meaningful compromise in
short order, the KRG could split or collapse as opposition leaders move their
operations from the seat of government in Arbil to Suleimaniyah.
The Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Presidency Crisis: June 17 – August
19.
The crisis over the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Presidency (henceforth
“Regional Presidency”) has been long in the making. Regional President and
leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Masoud Barzani’s term expired on
August 19. The Regional President is by far the most powerful government
official in the KRG, and Barzani has held the position since June 2005. Other political
parties, long unhappy with Barzani’s tenure, have heatedly debated whether Barzani is
permitted to hold office for another term, as he has technically served
two-and-a-half terms and the legal debate over how many
terms Barzani is permitted to serve is complex. The opposition, consisting of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Gorran (Change), the Kurdistan Islamic
Union (KIU), and the Islamic Group, attempted to leverage the expiration date
to extract concessions from Barzani that would constrict Barzani’s powers and
increase the powers of the regional parliament. In particular, the opposition
sought to convert the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) system from a presidential
system to
a parliamentary one. This change would favor the opposition, which holds 58
seats out of 111 and a simple majority, whereas the KDP holds only 38 seats,
bolstered by the 10 seats allotted to Turkmen and Christian parties who usually
side with the KDP.
Barzani refused to relinquish power by making concessions. The head
of the Kurdistan Independent High Electoral Commission (K-IHEC), KDP member
Handrin Muhammad Saleh, announced on June 17 that the Iraqi Kurdistan region would not hold elections to select a
new regional president, citing a lack of time to prepare and budgetary
constraints. On the same day, Gorran presented a proposal to transform the government
system, with the other
opposition parties following suit on June 18. The opposition parties presented a series of compromises after August 4
and suggested that Barzani could hold office for an additional two years until
the parliamentary elections in 2017 in exchange for converting to a
parliamentary system and significantly reducing the regional presidency’s powers, distributing some of them between
deputy regional presidents and the parliament. Subsequent proposals by the
opposition followed similar lines.
Discussions over how to address the crisis stalled. Barzani
steadfastly refused to compromise, while the opposition refused to cave into
Barzani. Mediation by Iranian officials, including the Assistant Secretary
General of the Iranian National Security Council on July 29, made no impact. Even a visit by Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force
commander Qassim Suleimani on July 26 to the PUK, which has historically
been close to Iran, did not sway the opposition, which insisted that the
regional presidency crisis was a strictly
Kurdish internal issue. Barzani leveraged KDP
control over the electoral commission to dissuade the opposition and gained a
ruling in his favor from the KDP-dominated Shura Council, an advisory body
within the Kurdish Justice Ministry tasked with resolving administrative
disputes. The Shura Council stated on August 17 that Barzani should remain in
office for
two years while retaining his full powers. However, the Gorran speaker of
parliament Yusuf Muhammad Sadiq promptly dismissed the decision, pointing out that the Shura Council’s ruling was not legally
binding.
Mediation by the U.S. and British Ambassadors to Iraq and the UN
Special Envoy to Iraq appeared to have laid the groundwork between the
KDP and the four opposition parties to extend discussions beyond the August 19
expiration date. The parties also agreed to delay an emergency session of
parliament scheduled for later that day to vote on an amendment to the law
governing the powers of the regional presidency. However, Gorran calculated
that it could use the opposition’s majority in the parliament to rush an
amendment through the legislative process at the last minute. The Gorran
speaker of parliament called the
emergency session, citing that there had been no formal request to delay it.
Gorran’s plan backfired badly, as the KDP boycotted the session and only 53
parliamentarians showed up for
the vote,
falling short of the 56 parliamentarians required for quorum; five members of
the KIU refused to
attend the
session, with one member suspending his membership in parliament on the grounds
that solving the crisis required a consensus agreement between all political
parties, including the KDP.
The Crisis Turns Violent: October 8 – October 9.
The five parties, having failed to reach an agreement before the August
19 deadline, began a series of meetings to discuss how to resolve the regional
presidency crisis. The ninth round of talks between the five parties broke down on October 8,
prompting the PUK to call for the regional presidency crisis to be resolved in the
parliament and not among the political parties, signaling the end of the
opposition’s patience with negotiations.
The crisis escalated unexpectedly when a protest by teachers over
delayed salaries and the ongoing political crisis turned violent in Qala Diza,
in northern Suleimaniyah. On October 9, the demonstrators clashed with security
forces, leaving two protesters
dead and
18 wounded. Other towns in Suleimaniyah province, including Kalar, Halabja, Karmiyan, and Suleimaniyah
city, as
well as Koya in Arbil
province, continued to witness large protests by teachers against delayed
salaries.
Political Violence: October 9 – October 11.
Although most demonstrations have remained peaceful, some witnessed
significant political violence. A series of attacks on political party
interests across Iraqi Kurdistan demonstrate that the opposition has initiated
violence itself or used party-affiliated thugs to coax peaceful demonstrators
into initiating violence in order to escalate the crisis. Demonstrators in Sayid Sadiq in eastern
Suleimaniyah province clashed with security forces on October 11, injuring an unknown
number of demonstrators and KDP supporters. Demonstrators
also attacked KDP headquarters buildings in Suleimaniyah. The KDP
reported that two KDP members
were killed and nine others wounded in the attack. KDP facilities in Kalar, Sharzur, Zarayin, Qala Diza, and Halabja were also
attacked.
Both the KDP and the opposition have targeted media outlets in a
bid to dominate the narrative of the demonstrations. Anonymous witnesses stated
that an “armed group” first attacked
the office of Rudaw network, a KDP-affiliated channel, in Suleimaniyah, firing
on the office but causing no casualties. Unidentified assailants also severely
beat journalists from at least five different
media outlets covering the October 10 Suleimaniyah protests. The targeted
violence indicates that opposition elements were present at the Suleimaniyah
demonstration, hijacking the
momentum of
a largely-peaceful movement and attempting to maximize the chaos for political
gain. KDP-dominated Asayish
internal security forces closed the
offices of the
Gorran-affiliated KNN media outlet in Arbil, Soran, and Dohuk, and deported KNN and the independent NRT-TV media outlet employees to
Suleimaniyah. NRT-TV claimed that security forces kidnapped its employees in
Dohuk and Arbil, but they were later released, and its offices were reopened on October 12.
The KDP and Gorran have dramatically escalated their rhetorical
attacks on each other. The outburst of violence and inter-party conflict
prompted the PUK, the KIU, and Gorran to call for
non-violence and for an emergency meeting of the political parties to prevent
the situation from spiraling out of control. Although the KDP called for calm, it held
Gorran leader Nechirvan Mustafa responsible for
the unrest. The KDP also blamed the PUK for not protecting KDP headquarters
sites, though the bulk of their ire has been directed at Gorran. The KDP stated
that the demonstrations were not popular and spontaneous, and that attacks on
its headquarters buildings “served the
interests of the enemies of the Kurds.” Gorran in turn and accused the KDP of using “the language of
the civil war years” and disrupting the work of the Kurdistan parliament. A Gorran Twitter
account also stated that gunmen carrying KDP banners attacked the Gorran
headquarters in Arbil with small arms and mortar fire. The Arbil police
directorate denied the
unconfirmed report and stated that the Gorran headquarters had never been attacked.
The KDP Kicks Gorran out of Government: October 11.
Amd numerous reports of attacks on KDP headquarters buildings, the
KDP used its control over Arbil to oust Gorran physically from government. On
October 11, the office of the speaker of parliament, a senior member of Gorran,
announced that the five parties had agreed to suspend the October 12
parliamentary session scheduled to discuss the crisis. Shortly thereafter,
Gorran stated that the political office of the KDP ordered Gorran parliamentarians,
ministers and Gorran speaker Sadiq to leave Arbil and
return to Suleimaniyah. Sadiq later claimed that a security force prevented Sadiq and Gorran parliamentarians from entering Arbil province at
a checkpoint in Altun Kubri, a town on the border of Arbil and PUK-dominated
Kirkuk provinces. A video from the
encounter alleges that security forces loyal to the KDP harassed the Gorran
convoy, breaking several windows of cars. The head of KDP External Relations
and a member of the KDP leadership council, Hayman Hurami, also announced that
Gorran ministers were no longer a part of the KRG.
The KDP’s expulsion of senior Gorran members from Arbil – a
unilateral removal of the leadership of the KRG’s second largest electoral bloc
–effectively removes the opposition’s ability to challenge the KDP in
parliament by physically keeping the speaker of parliament out of the
parliament building. Gorran denounced the move as a coup and an attempt by the KDP to paralyze the
work of the parliament; Gorran’s KIU allies denounced the move as a mistake that would
cause “fear and chaos” while a senior PUK official mirrored Goran’s description
of the move as a coup. At the time
of writing, Sadiq, Gorran parliamentarians, and Gorran’s ministers were in Suleimaniyah.
Next Steps
If the political crisis protracts for much longer, it will exacerbate
longstanding structural problems within the KRG. The Kurdish parliament has failed to pass
reforms
aimed at combating corruption and improving government performance, a priority
for PM Haidar al-Abadi and the Council of Representatives (CoR). Falling oil
prices and budget shortfalls are part of a larger state of economic malaise
that will be harder to address without consensus in government, and the
government employees who took to the streets on October 9 will continue demonstrating.
With Gorran members physically barred from entering Arbil, an agreement has
become increasingly unlikely.
There are several active drivers that could help push the KRG into
returning to negotiations. For one, discontent with the Iraqi Kurdish political
situation is widespread. Teachers, who are at the heart of the protest
movement, have not been paid for three months, nor have many members of the
Peshmerga and other government employees. While Suleimaniyah province is
securely a PUK and Gorran electoral stronghold, demonstrators in Qala Diza,
Rania, Binjawin, Kalar, Kifrin, and Halabja attacked party
headquarters buildings for Gorran, the PUK, the KDP, the KIU, and the Kurdistan Communist
Party, pelting the
buildings with stones and forcing them to remove their party flags, hoisting the flag of
the KRG instead. In addition, the Peshmerga have refused to partake in party conflict, as the Peshmerga Ministry called for
calm and stated that it would not allow attacks on any party or government
buildings. Finally, all parties have consistently urged demonstrators to avoid
violence, while Gorran’s Suleimaniyah office director has suggested that it is
still possible for Barzani and Gorran leader Mustafa to reach an
agreement over their political differences.
Other parties that form a parliamentary majority have denounced the KDP’s move
to exclude Gorran from the KRG. Yet it is not clear if the KDP will make any
move to compromise over the regional presidency. Barzani will not allow the
parliament speaker to return if he is convinced that the parliament will
attempt to bypass his stalling tactics and pass legislation aimed at reducing
the regional president’s powers. If every opposition parliamentarian shows up
for the vote, then a boycott by the KDP and its allies would not prevent the
law from passing. Sadiq has already suggested that the parliament can hold its session in any city to pass legislation.
However, the KDP is more likely to
ignore the ruling and denounce it as illegitimate rather than obey the legislature’s
ruling, considering that it has steadfastly refused to compromise on the
regional presidency issue for months. The current political situation is
untenable, with several opposition parties exasperated by the fractured
nature of the KRG and the dominance of the KDP in particular. If the two sides fail
to reach any sort of compromise, political unrest will continue, and the
possibility of rival governments – the regional presidency based in Arbil and the
parliament based in Suleimaniyah – will become increasingly likely.
