All Change on Iraqi Kurdish Political Scene

Professor Jotyar Adil, a lecturer in political science lecturer at Salahuddin University in Erbil province, sees the success of the Movement for Change as a natural consequence of declining confidence in the PUK among voters who believe the latter party has failed to deliver on past electoral pledges. That has driven many of the PUK’s former supporters to defect.

Professor Adil underlines, however, that the context of the Movement for Change’s emergence as a PUK offshoot means it cannot grow far beyond its present size and win support in non-Kurdish parts of Iraq.

“I don’t think that the party will expand greatly widely within the next few years, as Iraqi people don’t have a mature political culture that would prompt them to vote as citizens rather than as party members,” he Adil said.

Leading PUK politician Adnan al-Mufti, a former speaker of the Iraqi Kurdistan parliament, defended his party’s performance in government, and said it was all very well for opposition forces to sit and criticise when they did not carry any responsibility. The real test, he said, would come if the Movement for Change became part of a ruling coalition and had to start fulfilling promises to the electorate.

Mufti acknowledged that the PUK had been weakened, strengthening its new rival. One problem was the prolonged absence of its leader Jalal Talabani, who is Iraqi president and hence spends his time in Baghdad. The KDP’s Massoud Barzani is president of Iraqi Kurdistan, and thus very visible in the region.

Professor Adil says the September election, in which new rules required the KDP and PUK to run separately rather than as a bloc, showed the real popularity of the main parties

“The half-open list [where candidates are nominated by individual parties], which was applied for the first time in a Kurdistan election, motivated people to participate widely, and we can say it helped show the true size of each of the three main political parties,” he said.

Laith Hammoudi is IWPR’s editor in Iraq.