ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - In a gathering with foreign diplomats in Erbil, Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said that political parties are in the final stages of talks to form the new government and that the next four years will be of “peace and progress.”
“The next cabinet will be broad-based, in which all parties will participate,” Barzani said. “And their goal will be to maintain Kurdistan’s stability and peace and serve the people.”
He said that the long delay in forming a government – following the Kurdish elections -- had been unexpected, but that “all groups have been given a chance to voice their views and their participation has now been finalized.”
Political parties ran in Kurdistan’s parliamentary elections on September 21 in which Barzani’s own Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) won the majority of votes, securing 38 seats.
Since then, representatives of the winning parties have been in negotiations with Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who is KDP’s candidate to continue in the post.
The other heavyweight in the next cabinet would be the Change Movement (Gorran), which came second at the polls, with 24 seats.
After four years of acting as Kurdistan’s main opposition party, Gorran is now joining the government.
“The next four years will be years of stability and economic progress,” Gorran leader Nawshirwan Mustafa told senior leaders of his party in December, a tone indicating a recently-fostered closeness between the former opposition and the dominant KDP.
Following the 2009 elections, Gorran pushed for reforms in government institutions, which was not easy given that the party was not in government.
This time, however, Mustafa has said that he hopes to implement his “reform agenda” through direct participation in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and local parliament.
