Rojava's road to elections is riddled with obstacles
Elections of unprecedented scale are soon to take place in northeast Syria (Rojava), which is governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES, or AANES). Planning for the election is still in its early stages, as a commission to supervise the elections has yet to be established, but they are set to take place at some point after November 2021.
Election organizers will have a series of obstacles to clear before then. Talks between Kurdish political groups have been at a standstill for months, with the main opposition group refusing to take part in any election unless a concrete power share deal for a transitional government to govern for a few months beforehand is reached. The elections also pose a challenge of demographics, as they will take place over a wider area than ever before.
Past elections
The People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish armed group, took control of most of Kurdish-majority areas soon after the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, after the Syrian army withdrew to Arab-majority areas to focus its attention on other adversaries. In a first test of the ability of the Kurdish authorities to hold elections, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the YPG, held municipal elections in 2014 in the canton of Jazira. But that same year, Kurdish fighters faced an onslaught from the Islamic State (ISIS). With the military support the fighters received from the US-led coalition, they put up a fierce defense of the areas under its control, and managed to take control of Arab-majority areas in north and east Syria, including Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, and Tabqa.
The PYD declared federalism in the three cantons of Afrin, Euphrates, and Jazira in 2017, and held elections. The first phase of elections, to decide on community leaders like mukhtars, took place in September 2017. The second phase of elections, for local councils, took place in December the same year. The two main lists to participate in the second phase were the Democratic Nations List – comprising of several Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian parties, including the ruling PYD – and the Kurdish National Alliance, made up of other PYD-linked parties. The PYD-led list won the overwhelming majority of the 5,000 total seats, with the remainder taken by the PYD-affiliated list and independents.
The last phase of the elections, where the federal body would be elected, was scheduled for early 2018, but did not take place because of Turkey’s attacks on Afrin. The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), decided in late 2018 to establish the NES as an alternative to the federal body that would be elected in the third round.
The Kurdish National Council (ENKS), the main Kurdish opposition group in Rojava, did not participate in the elections. It has always refused to recognize the administration, and has found its demand that the PYD share power with it unmet. The party has also said that its offices in Rojava have been shut down, and that scores of its members had been detained in earlier years.
The 2017 elections in Rojava were not recognized by any country, including Russia and the US, or by the Syrian regime. There were no non-Kurdish observers of the election.
Election preparations
The broader area covered by the next elections means new preparations have to be made – including the formation of a new high electoral commission, and the drafting of a new election law, a former electoral commission official told Rudaw English.
“The situation is different now, and the geographical space covered by the elections is different,” said Rukan Malla Ibrahim, the former co-chair of the High Electoral Commission in the Jazira region.
“Previously, it was held mostly in Kurdish-majority areas, but the region has expanded as it now includes Tabqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor. The population of these areas have the right to take part in the elections.”
The Council announced in November 2020 that they had held over a dozen consultations across northeast Syria throughout the month. The consultations were based on a 17-point agenda, whose points of discussion included preparations for local elections in a year’s time and the restructuring of institutions to reduce bureaucracy.
Regarding the 17 decisions, head of the Council Amina Omar told Rudaw English that they have the responsibility to implement them all, including the one about holding general elections.
“The autonomous administration has practically begun implementing the decisions. There is also an evaluation committee to oversee the implementation of the decisions. It has also prepared a timetable to implement all points within a year,” she said.
“After that year, we will hold the general elections. The purpose of holding these elections is to grow the autonomous administration through the participation of political parties and independent figures who have not participated in it since its establishment seven years ago.”
PYD-ENKS tensions
Unity talks between the PYD-led Kurdish National Unity Parties (PYNK) umbrella group and the ENKS have been stalled for months. ENKS refuses to take part in any election without first reaching a final deal with PYNK.
The talks began in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province in 2014. An initial agreement was reached, but it was never implemented, with each side blaming the other for the failure.
At the end of 2019, weeks after Turkey invaded the north Syrian towns of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), SDF general commander Mazloum Abdi initiated fresh talks between the two parties in a renewed attempt at Kurdish unity.
The talks began well, but took a hit in the summer of 2020 when tensions escalated across the border in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – which has links with the ENKS – and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with which the PYD is ideologically tied.
Elections were a point of discussion at the talks, and Sulaiman Oso, a member of the ENKS delegation, told Rudaw English that the two parties reached an initial agreement that “elections will be held one year after the [final] agreement, and there will be a transition period when people from the ENKS will be employed at the administration within two or three months.”
“We [and the PYNK] will jointly govern the administration of Rojava. Later, we can go to elections as a joint list or separate lists,” Oso said.
However, if the two parties fail to reach any final agreement and the NES insists on holding elections, “we will definitely not attend any election whose results will be as per their desires because they are the ruling party and have controlled everything in Rojava”.
Earlier this month, ENKS leader Siud Mala told Rebaz news outlet, affiliated with his party, that “the elections that the PYD claims to hold have nothing to do with democracy. They are symbolic elections, conducted by one party in a dictatorial way and the results are known in advance.” Mala even compared the elections to those of the Baathist regime.
The PYD has dismissed the ENKS’ demand for a 50/50 power share as unfair to officials elected to their positions in 2017. Aldar Khalil, head of the PYD delegation in talks with ENKS, told the PKK-linked Ozgur Politika newspaper on January 12 that the “ENKS wants everything”, and that his party will not split power down the middle.
Officials from both parties have said that the change in US administration is what ground the talks to a halt. Both parties have expressed their readiness to resume negotiations, though it is not clear when they will take place.
Smaller parties have also expressed their reservations about the lead-up to the next election. Among them is the One Syria Community, a party active in Arab-majority areas and affiliated with the Assad regime. Party leader Sheikh Basman al-Assaf told Rudaw in December that they were not happy with the SDC’s consultations.
The meetings “were about discussing the autonomous administration while there are a large number of people who basically do not accept the administration,” Assaf said.
Assaf claimed that the Kurdish unity talks “lack transparency”, and that Arab parties should be told about developments in the talks. He also said that Arabs “want a deal in the region which includes negotiations with the Syrian government. This is not [just] my personal view”.
Arab residents of the Euphrates region, which includes Raqqa, Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, and Manbij, have spoken up against the NES’ governance and policy and have held protests. They were received by the SDF’s Abdi and other officials to address their concerns.
Though protests have died down, efforts by Damascus to lure in Arabs in the Euphrates region could pose a threat to the Kurdish-led administration.
‘As transparent as possible’
Ayman Abdel Nour, a well known reformist and the president of the non-profit Syrian Christian of Peace, urged that the NES pay attention to the concerns of opposition parties and minority groups, to “refrain from repeating the dictatorial example of Assad’s family.”
“It is difficult for Arab political parties to attend if it is not secure, or guaranteed that their votes will be counted,” said Abdel Nour, who is based in Dubai.
Mass displacement to and from Rojava poses a demographic challenge to conducting an election, he said.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people from Rojava abroad. There are also hundreds of thousands of people in the self-administration who were displaced from other areas… so it is not easy to hold a fair election. There needs to be regulations for it”.
Charles Flynn is a researcher at the Rojava Information Center (RIC), which monitors local developments.
Flynn said that the NES “should make this process as transparent as possible, invite anyone or any group that has questions or concerns to observe and investigate the voting procedures,” adding the United Nations, USA, Russia and France should be among the invited.
“If the ENKS has specific concerns, they should be conveyed publicly and allow for the AANES to meet these concerns.”
Despite the challenges, Flynn is hopeful for a successful election.
“I think that the elections will be fair and democratic – although I do suspect that at first glance the set up and results of these elections may seem confusing,” he said.
“I have doubts that whatever ballots are generated for this election will look similar between people or regions; and that may seem corrupt upfront, but under the framework of the AANES, this makes perfect sense.”
Election organizers will have a series of obstacles to clear before then. Talks between Kurdish political groups have been at a standstill for months, with the main opposition group refusing to take part in any election unless a concrete power share deal for a transitional government to govern for a few months beforehand is reached. The elections also pose a challenge of demographics, as they will take place over a wider area than ever before.
Past elections
The People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish armed group, took control of most of Kurdish-majority areas soon after the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, after the Syrian army withdrew to Arab-majority areas to focus its attention on other adversaries. In a first test of the ability of the Kurdish authorities to hold elections, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the YPG, held municipal elections in 2014 in the canton of Jazira. But that same year, Kurdish fighters faced an onslaught from the Islamic State (ISIS). With the military support the fighters received from the US-led coalition, they put up a fierce defense of the areas under its control, and managed to take control of Arab-majority areas in north and east Syria, including Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, and Tabqa.
The PYD declared federalism in the three cantons of Afrin, Euphrates, and Jazira in 2017, and held elections. The first phase of elections, to decide on community leaders like mukhtars, took place in September 2017. The second phase of elections, for local councils, took place in December the same year. The two main lists to participate in the second phase were the Democratic Nations List – comprising of several Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian parties, including the ruling PYD – and the Kurdish National Alliance, made up of other PYD-linked parties. The PYD-led list won the overwhelming majority of the 5,000 total seats, with the remainder taken by the PYD-affiliated list and independents.
The last phase of the elections, where the federal body would be elected, was scheduled for early 2018, but did not take place because of Turkey’s attacks on Afrin. The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), decided in late 2018 to establish the NES as an alternative to the federal body that would be elected in the third round.
The Kurdish National Council (ENKS), the main Kurdish opposition group in Rojava, did not participate in the elections. It has always refused to recognize the administration, and has found its demand that the PYD share power with it unmet. The party has also said that its offices in Rojava have been shut down, and that scores of its members had been detained in earlier years.
The 2017 elections in Rojava were not recognized by any country, including Russia and the US, or by the Syrian regime. There were no non-Kurdish observers of the election.
Election preparations
The broader area covered by the next elections means new preparations have to be made – including the formation of a new high electoral commission, and the drafting of a new election law, a former electoral commission official told Rudaw English.
“The situation is different now, and the geographical space covered by the elections is different,” said Rukan Malla Ibrahim, the former co-chair of the High Electoral Commission in the Jazira region.
“Previously, it was held mostly in Kurdish-majority areas, but the region has expanded as it now includes Tabqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor. The population of these areas have the right to take part in the elections.”
The Council announced in November 2020 that they had held over a dozen consultations across northeast Syria throughout the month. The consultations were based on a 17-point agenda, whose points of discussion included preparations for local elections in a year’s time and the restructuring of institutions to reduce bureaucracy.
Regarding the 17 decisions, head of the Council Amina Omar told Rudaw English that they have the responsibility to implement them all, including the one about holding general elections.
“The autonomous administration has practically begun implementing the decisions. There is also an evaluation committee to oversee the implementation of the decisions. It has also prepared a timetable to implement all points within a year,” she said.
“After that year, we will hold the general elections. The purpose of holding these elections is to grow the autonomous administration through the participation of political parties and independent figures who have not participated in it since its establishment seven years ago.”
PYD-ENKS tensions
Unity talks between the PYD-led Kurdish National Unity Parties (PYNK) umbrella group and the ENKS have been stalled for months. ENKS refuses to take part in any election without first reaching a final deal with PYNK.
The talks began in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province in 2014. An initial agreement was reached, but it was never implemented, with each side blaming the other for the failure.
At the end of 2019, weeks after Turkey invaded the north Syrian towns of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad), SDF general commander Mazloum Abdi initiated fresh talks between the two parties in a renewed attempt at Kurdish unity.
The talks began well, but took a hit in the summer of 2020 when tensions escalated across the border in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – which has links with the ENKS – and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with which the PYD is ideologically tied.
Elections were a point of discussion at the talks, and Sulaiman Oso, a member of the ENKS delegation, told Rudaw English that the two parties reached an initial agreement that “elections will be held one year after the [final] agreement, and there will be a transition period when people from the ENKS will be employed at the administration within two or three months.”
“We [and the PYNK] will jointly govern the administration of Rojava. Later, we can go to elections as a joint list or separate lists,” Oso said.
However, if the two parties fail to reach any final agreement and the NES insists on holding elections, “we will definitely not attend any election whose results will be as per their desires because they are the ruling party and have controlled everything in Rojava”.
Earlier this month, ENKS leader Siud Mala told Rebaz news outlet, affiliated with his party, that “the elections that the PYD claims to hold have nothing to do with democracy. They are symbolic elections, conducted by one party in a dictatorial way and the results are known in advance.” Mala even compared the elections to those of the Baathist regime.
The PYD has dismissed the ENKS’ demand for a 50/50 power share as unfair to officials elected to their positions in 2017. Aldar Khalil, head of the PYD delegation in talks with ENKS, told the PKK-linked Ozgur Politika newspaper on January 12 that the “ENKS wants everything”, and that his party will not split power down the middle.
Officials from both parties have said that the change in US administration is what ground the talks to a halt. Both parties have expressed their readiness to resume negotiations, though it is not clear when they will take place.
Smaller parties have also expressed their reservations about the lead-up to the next election. Among them is the One Syria Community, a party active in Arab-majority areas and affiliated with the Assad regime. Party leader Sheikh Basman al-Assaf told Rudaw in December that they were not happy with the SDC’s consultations.
The meetings “were about discussing the autonomous administration while there are a large number of people who basically do not accept the administration,” Assaf said.
Assaf claimed that the Kurdish unity talks “lack transparency”, and that Arab parties should be told about developments in the talks. He also said that Arabs “want a deal in the region which includes negotiations with the Syrian government. This is not [just] my personal view”.
Arab residents of the Euphrates region, which includes Raqqa, Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, and Manbij, have spoken up against the NES’ governance and policy and have held protests. They were received by the SDF’s Abdi and other officials to address their concerns.
Though protests have died down, efforts by Damascus to lure in Arabs in the Euphrates region could pose a threat to the Kurdish-led administration.
‘As transparent as possible’
Ayman Abdel Nour, a well known reformist and the president of the non-profit Syrian Christian of Peace, urged that the NES pay attention to the concerns of opposition parties and minority groups, to “refrain from repeating the dictatorial example of Assad’s family.”
“It is difficult for Arab political parties to attend if it is not secure, or guaranteed that their votes will be counted,” said Abdel Nour, who is based in Dubai.
Mass displacement to and from Rojava poses a demographic challenge to conducting an election, he said.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people from Rojava abroad. There are also hundreds of thousands of people in the self-administration who were displaced from other areas… so it is not easy to hold a fair election. There needs to be regulations for it”.
Charles Flynn is a researcher at the Rojava Information Center (RIC), which monitors local developments.
Flynn said that the NES “should make this process as transparent as possible, invite anyone or any group that has questions or concerns to observe and investigate the voting procedures,” adding the United Nations, USA, Russia and France should be among the invited.
“If the ENKS has specific concerns, they should be conveyed publicly and allow for the AANES to meet these concerns.”
Despite the challenges, Flynn is hopeful for a successful election.
“I think that the elections will be fair and democratic – although I do suspect that at first glance the set up and results of these elections may seem confusing,” he said.
“I have doubts that whatever ballots are generated for this election will look similar between people or regions; and that may seem corrupt upfront, but under the framework of the AANES, this makes perfect sense.”