ARBIL, Iraq, Sept 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A year ago, the roads of Iraqi
Kurdistan were decked out with green, red and white Kurdish flags as the
region voted overwhelmingly for independence from Baghdad.
Today, the election posters lining the streets of regional capital Arbil
ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary vote are simply an annoyance to many Kurdish
voters, angry at their leadership and the economic crisis deepened by the
September 2017 poll.
“They are spending crazy money on printing campaign posters,” said Abdullah
Mohammed, a 69-year-old retiree. “But when people in need ask for help, they
say there’s a crisis and there’s no money.”
Twelve months since a controversial referendum that sparked a punishing
backlash from Baghdad, Iraq’s divided Kurds will elect a regional parliament
Sunday, their dreams of statehood shattered.
“These elections don’t interest me at all,” Mohammed said, a black and
white kuffiyeh scarf on his head.
Last year’s poll, held in defiance of the international community, sparked
anger and a firm rejection from the Iraqi capital.
It also deepened the divide between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of
longtime regional leader Massud Barzani, who championed the referendum, and
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Less than three weeks after the vote, federal forces moved in to oust PUK
forces that were controlling the disputed province of Kirkuk.
The provincial governor, who had supported the KDP-backed referendum, took
to the airwaves to call people to arms — even as PUK forces withdrew without
a fight.
Iraqi President Fuad Masum, a PUK member, blamed the referendum for
triggering the assault on Kirkuk, whose rich oil resources would have been
essential to the survival of a Kurdish state.
Barzani, who stepped down shortly after the poll, indirectly accused the
PUK of “high treason” for withdrawing.
The episode exposed the deep split between the two parties that dominate
Kurdish politics.
– KDP upbeat –
Despite the backlash sparked by the referendum, the fact that three million
Kurds voted for independence will have major implications for the election,
according to Adel Bakawan, director general of the Kurdistan centre of
sociology at Soran University near Arbil.
“By portraying themselves as victims of an international and regional
system that prevents the Kurds entering history by founding their state, the
separatists are hoping to win back those votes,” he said.
The KDP has already reaped the rewards of its separatist stance, winning 25
seats in May elections to the Iraqi national parliament, making it the top
party from the Kurdistan region, he said.
Party officials are upbeat.
“All the signs indicate that the KDP will dominate and win by a landslide”
on Sunday, said Sobhi al-Mandalawi, a high-ranking party member in Arbil.
The stranglehold the two heavyweights have over Kurdish politics means
smaller parties are excluded from decision-making, Bakawan said.
That has created distrust that could prompt record levels of abstention, he
said.
That will likely prolong the PDK’s grip on power, according to Abdulrazaq
Sharif of the Goran (Change) movement, set up in 2009 to challenge the
monopoly of the two main parties, which it accuses of corruption.
“Goran wants to see Kurds play a real role in the central government,” he
said.
Wahid Kurdi, a 57-year-old former Peshmerga fighter from Arbil, said the
regional government’s key priority should be the wellbeing of “Kurds who are
suffering in Kirkuk” and other disputed areas.
“Once they’re in parliament, MPs must not forget the disputed zones,” he
said. “They should work to bring them back inside the borders of Kurdistan.”
In the autonomous region’s second city Sulaimaniyah, Ahmed Bashdari, 65,
said he plans to vote — “for those who don’t put Kurdistan in danger” — and
urged leaders to rebuild the bridges damaged by the referendum.
Leaders in Kurdistan and Baghdad “must make concessions so their conflicts
stop damaging people’s lives,” he said.