PUK Falls to Third Place In Iraqi Kurdistan Elections

Things stabilized only after the political change in Iraq in 2003, when the Iraqi political process allowed for redistributing the roles between the two historic Kurdish leaders. Talabani became Iraq’s president, while Barzani governed the Kurdistan region. That role distribution was the main reason behind the strategic alliance between the two parties after their long dispute.

The elections in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are important, because they allow the power balance to be measured. Barzani — the biggest winner — knows more than anyone that political calculations are more important than the number of parliamentary seats, especially at this historically sensitive stage for the region’s Kurds. So, Barzani is likely to maintain his alliance with the PUK and the party’s unity, to overcome the post-Talabani crisis.

Despite the media’s focus on Talabani’s party, about its fate in light of the electoral results, about its ability to form a unified strategy for the next stage and about the PUK’s insistence of hanging on to Talabani’s symbolism while neglecting to work on clear mechanism to deal with the future, the elections imposed a reality that cannot be ignored. The strength of the new Movement for Change lies in its internal unity and clarity of leadership, in the fact that it presented an anti-corruption reformist political program and in its exploitation of the emotional memories of the competitive relationship between Sulaimaniyah and Erbil.

It is noteworthy that the Kurdish elections were not affected by the political changes in the region, particularly in terms of the Islamist parties’ popularities. Many observers erroneously predicted that Kurdish Islamist parties will see their support grow in light of the rise of Islamist forces in the region. The fact that this did not happen indicates that Kurdish nationalism is still a fundamental factor in the Kurdish popular mood.

Mushreq Abbas is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse. He has been managing editor of Al-Hayat’s Iraq bureau since 2005 and has written studies and articles on Iraqi crises for domestic and international publication.