SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region — The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss a number of issues including setting a date for the party congress, and elect an executive body to run the affairs until congress is held.
The party has failed twice to meet, even though they scheduled the meetings.
Saadi Ahmad Pira, the PUK spokesperson, told Rudaw on Wednesday that it is “highly likely” for the Leadership Council to set the a date for the congress — which needs to take place following the death of party leader Jalal Talabani on October 3.
He said that the party will also discuss the issue of the general elections in both the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. Iraqi elections are set for May 12.
Kosrat Rasul, the party’s deputy head, has called for the meeting, PUK leadership member, Mohammed Saeed, otherwise called Hamay Hama Saeed, told Rudaw.
He said that the party has to put the final touch on electing an 11-member committee to replace the politburo office.
While Saaed and others say that party’s politburo office has been dissolved, others including senior members such as Mala Bakhtiyar have contested this assertion.
In early November, the party was set to dissolve the politburo office and replace it with an 11-member committee led by Rasul. But that plan never materialized, partly because shortly thereafter Rasul fell ill and was flown to Germany to receive treatment for about two months. He returned to the Kurdistan Region on January 6.
Fuad Masum, from the PUK who is the Iraqi president and a member of the PUK, stressed on the importance of holding the fourth party congress as soon as possible in a meeting with members of different branches of PUK in Sulaimani on Tuesday, as reported by PUK Media.
The party congress was set to be held on March 7, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, an influential PUK member in Sulaimani and the widow of Jalal Talabani, said in December.
Qubad Talabani, the youngest son of the late Jalal Talabani, is the highest-ranking PUK politician in the KRG, as the deputy PM.
He has the backing of Rasul and his mother, Rudaw learned from a PUK official who wished to remain anonymous in December.
Bakhtiyar told Rudaw in early-January that some PUK officials have contributed to an environment of crises that face the party. He explained that some wanted to derail an internal investigation into the October 16 events in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, two disputed or Kurdistani areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad that fell to Iraqi forces in October; others opposed holding party congress; and that there are those who did not want to accept the resignation letter filed by Barham Salih, the PUK's former deputy head.
Salih, who served as the KRG prime minister from 2009 to 2012, established the Coalition for Democracy and Justice (CDJ) party in September.
The CDJ is now in alliance with the PUK's offshoot the Change Movement (Gorran), and the smaller Islamic Group (Komal) — opposition parties who unsuccessfully campaigned for the Kurdistan Regional Government be dissolved, and instead form an interim government. Both the ruling KDP and PUK rejected this call.
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