ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A month after parliamentary elections, political parties in the Kurdistan Region are still mulling over the composition of the next government. Opposition groups insist on preconditions, while the ruling parties speak of a broad-based government.
Ali Awni, whose ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party swept the September 21 polls with 38 seats, said that the KDP wants all parties to join the new government and start working together for the future. “The KDP has no red tapes. Any party can join the government,” he said.
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition Change Movement (Gorran), the second-largest winner at the polls with 24 seats, said Monday that his group has inflexible conditions for joining the new cabinet.
Nawshirwan Mustafa said that Gorran will join the government “with an agenda for reform, combating corruption, achieving transparency and providing public services.”
These days the KDP has a mixed basket of parties to deal with before forming a government, among them its former partner the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which was trounced at the polls by rival Gorran.
The PUK’s poor record in the elections has its leaders grappling with “inner grassroots changes” and a serious leadership crisis.
“There is more understanding and closeness between us and the KDP,” said Goran Azad, a PUK MP. “But the PUK will have its own set of conditions before joining the new government.”
Among them, he said, are amendments to the constitution, transparency in oil revenues, a national fund and health insurance.
In 2007, the PUK and KDP signed a Strategic Agreement, allowing them to unify their respective governments under one administration and running the government and parliament in a majority.
Azad said that the necessity of the Strategic Agreement is long past.
“The soul of the strategic agreement has faded,” he said. “It was to prevent war between the PUK and KDP, to keep us united in Baghdad. But running separately in the elections showed that that fear is gone.”
The KDP’s Awani also admitted that the agreement may be past its expiration date. “The strategic agreement is still alive, but both sides think we need to reassess some of its clauses,” he said.
A fourth party that continuously flexes its muscles despite its gain of only eight seats in the elections, is the Kurdistan Islamic Union. For the past four years it has been in the opposition, but its leaders are now speaking favorably about participating in the new government.
“Our main condition for joining the government is that all winning parties in the election must be respected,” said Muthana Amin, a member of the Islamic Union’s leadership council. “By that I mean we should have a role in drawing the political map of this country.”
Amin said that the PUK-KDP agreement had been a mistake. “Instead, we suggest a national strategic agreement among all parties,” he added.
Amin said that the PUK and KDP have every right to preserve their strong bond. But “if with their strategic agreement they continue to run Kurdistan as they have done till now, then certainly no opposition group will join the government,” he said.
It is far from clear which parties the KDP will in the end entice to join the government when its favorite ally, the PUK, sounds as cautious as the opposition groups.
“Some say we shouldn’t join the government, some say we should become the opposition,” said Azad. “But whether we join based on our achievement in the elections or because of our loyalty to the KDP, in the end it will be the PUK’s leadership council that will decide.”
