Barham Salih looks to inject new life into Kurdish politics

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The newly formed Coalition for Democracy and Justice hopes to shed the politics of “corruption and monopoly” and inject new life into Kurdistan’s political sphere to find solutions to the “difficult crisis” facing the Region. 
 
“The difficult crisis which has currently engulfed the Kurds is the result of some centers of vested interest. Despite their party differences, their different names and their different mottos, they are of the same nature when it comes to having shared companies, the monopoly of power and procrastinating on the hardship of this nation,” founder of the Coalition Barham Salih said in a televised address on Monday evening.

Salih, a veteran politician and former member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leadership, registered his political entity with the electoral body in mid-September. He stated on Monday that his Coalition will run in parliamentary elections to be held on November 1. Presidential elections will also take place on the same date. 

He argued that one party or one region cannot resolve Kurdistan’s problems, but rather an alliance of various people and parties was necessary to find solutions, confront “corruption and monopoly,” and “enforce justice, which is the basis of good governance.” 

Salih has served as PUK’s second deputy. He has also previously been the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) from 2009 to 2012, and deputy prime minister of Iraq prior to that.