Abadi campaigns in half-empty halls in Kurdistan
Abadi, the head of the Victory (Nasr) Alliance, has fielded 28 candidates in the Kurdistan Region. His is not the first Arab list to do so, but he has created a precedent, campaigning in person in Erbil and Sulaimani.
The current prime minister seeking a second term, Abadi has emphasized that he is running on a nonsectarian, cross-ethnic platform that focuses on tackling corruption and an economic reawakening. However, the reality is not matching his ideal.
Few Kurds were among the small crowds came out to his campaign events in Sulaimani and Erbil. Attendees were largely Arab and Turkmen families and relatives of the candidates.
Abadi arrived an hour late to Erbil’s Saad Abdullah Hall on Thursday morning. Campaign volunteers had strategically placed posters, apparently to cut the room in half and hide empty seats.
Campaign organizers prevented Kurdish TV cameras from covering the event inside the hall.
Outside the hall, posters were vandalized – ripped up by young angry men. In Sulaimani, his posters were painted with black X’s. His visit to Duhok was cancelled, until further notice, for unknown reasons.
Some greeted Abadi by flying a large Kurdish flag over the route his convoy, according to video circulating online.
One attendee in Sulaimani, a young woman from Kirkuk, explained to Rudaw that she was there to “denounce and condemn his visit.”
A video of her shouting in the hall for Abadi to “Leave Kurdistan! We have not forgotten October 16,” has circulated online.
She accused the Kurds present there, running on Abadi's list, of committing treason.
Kurdish candidates running on Arab lists are unpopular. Mahmood Hafid Zada, a grandson of Kurdish king Sheikh Mahmoud Hafid Barzinji, disowned his brother Mustafa Sheikh Kawa after he decided to run on the list of the National Hikma (Wisdom) Movement led by Ammar al-Hakim.
Addressing the small crowd in Erbil, Abadi said Iraqi unity must come voluntarily, not through coercion, or force.
The top candidate of Abadi’s Victory list in Erbil, Jarjis Gulizada, told Rudaw in a recent interview that he will not surrender any of his Kurdish identity, but “my duty as a Kurd or Iraqi is to establish a strategic harmony between the two.”
Though everyone – even Gulizada – unanimously believe that Abadi’s candidates cannot secure one single seat in Kurdistan, the parties, however, have different interpretations of his visit.
"All of Abadi's steps are a message to the Kurdistan Region's political parties, to all the political leaders and the citizens of the Kurdistan Region, and gives the message that says the Kurdistan Region and its cities are like a city in Basra, Najaf, and Karbala. This is how he views Kurdistan," Osman Karwani, Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) leadership council member, told Rudaw.
Karwani added that Abadi is giving the message that the autonomy of the Kurdistan Region is gone and a new stage has started.
"Candidates of Erbil, Sulaimani, and Duhok cannot garner votes in Basra, Amara, Kut, and Najaf… It is the same for Mr. Abadi or any other person," Aras Wali, member of Gorran's National Congress, told Rudaw.
"He wants to tell his competitors that he is the first person to campaign in the Kurdistan Region, so I have a closer relation with [Kurdistan] than you. He also wants to say that he will secure a second term as the prime minister of Iraq and gives the message that he is turning a new page with the Kurdistan Region," Chinar Sa'ad Abdullah, member of KDP's leadership council, told Rudaw.
The empty halls and protests that greeted Abadi testify that Iraq has not transcended sectarian and ethnic lines.