Kurdish Election Foreshadows Regional Unrest

By Advait Arun

Kurdish parliamentary elections, which were originally scheduled for last year but were delayed due to the political fallout following the region’s bid for independence from Iraq, took place on September 30. The results, which were supposed to have been officially announced on October 3, have been delayed due to numerous complaints and allegations of fraud, according to Reuters.

After three decades of a tenuous power-sharing agreement between the two primary Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has the potential to dominate its main rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party (PUK).

The two parties agreed to a power-sharing agreement in the 1990s after a four-year civil war. Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the agreement was extended to allow the KDP’s leader, Masoud Barzani, to serve as president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) while the PUK’s leader, the late Jalal Talabani, assumed the chiefly ceremonial presidency of Iraq’s federal government.

The now-fractured leadership of the PUK, however, has given the KDP an opening to renege on the power-sharing arrangement. For the first time, the KDP nominated their own candidate for the Iraqi presidency. While the PUK’s candidate for the Iraqi presidency ultimately triumphed, the KDP has grown increasingly vitriolic toward the PUK in its bid for control of the KRG, reported Al Jazeera.

This election cycle was also marred by allegations from multiple opposition parties of voter fraud and armed intimidation. According to Al Jazeera, these opposition parties, which include Gorran, the Kurdistan Islamic Group, and New Generation, claimed that the KDP and PUK were engaged in widespread voter fraud through the use of their armed forces, the Peshmerga, and an extensive political patronage system.

“Electoral fraud is not only what is happening on election day but rather before the election day as the KDP and PUK force the KDP and PUK militia forces, anti-terror forces, the security forces, and the police forces to vote for them, threatening people with cutting their salaries if they do not vote for them, distributing cash, and using clans and governmental and state institutions to their benefit,” Kamal Chomani, a fellow of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, reported to Al-Monitor.

The leadership of both the PUK and KDP have rejected these allegations. Al-Monitor reported that, prior to elections, the KRG announced that six foreign countries would be monitoring the elections through their consulates, intending to assuage concerns of voter fraud. Still, according to Al-Monitor, multiple instances of legitimate voter fraud occurred, involving gunmen, fake IDs, and intimidation of journalists.

The vote filled 111 seats, 11 of which were reserved for Christian and Turkmen ethnic minorities. According to Rudaw Media Network, a KDP-backed news agency, 58 percent of eligible Kurds voted. Rudaw projects that the KDP will remain in power with 45 seats, followed by the PUK with 21 seats, and Gorran with 12 seats. The KDP is 11 seats short of a majority, but Rudaw reports that the party has close ties with most of the 11 representatives reserved for ethnic minorities.