Barzanis’ Tactics for KDP Win in Iraq’s Parliamentary Elections

This year’s elections will see nearly 88 political alliances racing for 328 seats. Meanwhile, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country, which includes the three cities of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Dahuk, 25 factions with 503 candidates will fight for 46 seats in the national parliament based in Baghdad the capital. Sulaymaniyah is granted 18, Erbil 16, and Dahuk 12 seats, with each of them securing a single seat for the Christian minority.

In the past few weeks, competition between Kurdish and Arab groups became highly spirited, and in the past few days it touched its climactic levels.

In the past elections, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which also rules the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has been a leading party making its way to the Iraqi parliament. In the 2014 elections, the last held in the county, the KDP made it to the Council of Representatives by securing 25 seats. And in the present time, the party’s leaders are struggling to repeat their previous victory at any price. Some even note that they are going to great lengths to win even more seats. Relying on its huge financial sources, the party has recently arranged a tremendous campaign to persuade the Kurdish voters to vote for it. KDP’s propaganda is majorly built on the perpetuation of the concept of an independent state for the Kurds. The KDP, led by Masoud Barzani, the architect of the failed Kurdish independence referendum, has formulated a series of tactics to gain overwhelming vote in the upcoming parliamentary race. Here are two of them:

Polarization

Barzani seems to have applied Polarization as an important tactic as his party steps in the contest. He is trying to exhibit himself and his party as the patriotic side and blacken defame the opponents as the “traitors’ betraying the Kurdish cause. Since the competition gained heat, his party has focused on the loss of Kirkuk to the Iraqi forces on the heels of independence vote as a great treason of the opposite side. This tagging has been used for some time. The latest use was by Masrour Barzani, the son of Masoud and the Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council. On May 5, he in an election campaign speech in Soran city made reference to the October 16, 2017 fall of the oil-rich strategic Kirkuk to the central government’s forces, saying “we do not forget the great treason (in Kirkuk). We very well remember how readily Kirkuk was handed over to the central government.” He continued, referring to his grandfather’s record of fighting for the Kurdistan independence: “Mollah Mustafa Barzani did not give even an inch of the Kurdish soil to the enemy. Now with wrangling it is impossible to distort the history or the reality.” He continued his attacks on the rival Kurdish parties to paint them as traitors by maintaining that “we could not believe that in the current conditions some could betray us.”

The tactic of traitor labeling by the Barzani figures is massively directed against the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Gorran (Change) Movement, and Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG). Still, this campaign of the Barzanis has another face: bragging of the KDP as the sole patriotic party which is the protector of the Kurds’ interests in the overcrowded Iraqi game.

This labeling serves another Barzani goal. The Barzani family, under heavy strains of the rivals who accuse them of imprudence for holding the controversial secession vote while its failure was apparently foreseeable with strong domestic, regional, and international opposition to it, seeks to foil the rival camp’s pressure tools. But it is now widely observable that, to the Barzanis’ frustration, the ordinary Kurds are figuring out that the plebiscite not only failed to serve their interests but also brought about tons of problems to them. Presently, the living conditions improvement and economic welfare, and not separation, occupy a top place in the Kurdish citizens’ priority list.

Accentuating independence bid

The Barzani family has another tactic to put to work in the parliamentary battle. It emphasizes, sometimes covertly and sometimes overtly, that the independence demands and agenda will continue with strength to win the voters’ attention. The Barzanis frequently bomb the Kurdish citizens’ minds with the idea that if they win big, they will wage a war of Iraqi constitution review against Baghdad. And if their push for a new constitution meets its failure, the KDP will revive the Kurdish secessionist agenda. This point was made clear by Masrour Barzani who said, “If we win, we will fight for implementation of the constitution.” He also held that they intend to build a coalition of Kurdish parties in the Iraqi parliament. Roji Nuri Shahwais, a senior figure at the KDP, announced on May 3 that if the Iraqi constitution on the disputed areas is not implemented, KRG will commence the independence declaration process.

The KDP leaders’ promises uncover their demagogic nature when they vow to return the disputed areas to the rule of the regional government. The pledges of this type are coming while the Iraqi field circumstances give the notion that not only none of the KDP promises are realizable but also the KRG’ survival is subject to doubt as the region is grappling with numerable woes. With this in mind, the Kurdistan Democratic Party leaders’ slogans and promises are devoid of a ground of realization and have only election consumption objectives, as they hardly find a credible welcome by a majority of the citizens in the three major Kurdistan region’s cities.