SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – The results of last month's parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region indicate a major shift in voter thinking: A number of young candidates came to the forefront of politics and were elected to parliament, something uncommon in past elections.
The political parties had nominated some of their veteran politicians for the election, hoping that would win many votes. But the outcome proved them wrong. Most of the votes went to several young candidates whose names had not figured much during the election campaign.
Ali Hamasalih, a young candidate who became known through a TV show he hosted on the KNN station run by the opposition Change Movement (Gorran), astonished many by winning more than 139,000 votes. He outran the most influential leaders of Gorran itself.
Bestun Fayaq, one of Hamasalih's colleagues who also gained enough votes for a seat in parliament, says that Kurdish voters have shown they are both intelligent and mature.
"The voters looked at candidates' resumes more than anything," says Fayaq. "They wanted to replace some of the old faces with new ones."
He adds that some old politicians had done favors to thousands of people in an effort to win votes, but at the polls they did not garner anything worth mentioning.
In party conventions and for internal committees, often the same faces were consistently re-elected. But in last month's elections the dynamics were completely changed.
For example, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) threw its full weight behind Arsalan Bayiz, a member of the political bureau and current parliamentary speaker. He lost to young Darbaz Rasul by more than 30,000 votes.
The Islamic Union for its part fielded Mawlud Bawamurad as its candidate of choice. But Haji Karwan, also a TV personality of the same party, outvoted him by more than 70,000 votes.
The same pattern applied to the Islamic League (Komal), which had pinned its hopes on one of its senior leaders. In the end, he lagged behind one of his much younger colleagues by 14,000 votes.
Kawa Mahmoud, the current minister of culture and a candidate of the Kurdistan Communist Party won only 195 votes. He says that young candidates winning the majority of votes "has nothing to do with the young generation voting for them."
"I knew that I wouldn't win anyway, but I ran in the elections only to raise the balance of my party a little higher,” Mahmoud claims.
Candidates of different political parties who had decades of experience in politics and governance, altogether could not beat three young runners.
But Abdulwahab Ali, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) leadership committee, says that younger faces in parliament do not mean that the new assembly will be more active.
"Electing some young candidates doesn't mean we will have an active parliament. Some of these young people have no experience in parliamentary work at all," he notes.
