ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – At just the very moment Kurdish parties ought to be uniting in the face of economic turbulence and a renewed standoff with Baghdad, the decision to revoke the parliamentary immunity of an opposition MP on Thursday could create deeper fissures among Kurdish factions.
The Kurdistan Parliament voted on Thursday to revoke the parliamentary immunity of Soran Omar, a Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) MP, allowing Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to sue him for libelous statements submitted to the parliament.
The move, supported by Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and minority blocs in the parliament, was roundly condemned by other factions as an attack on the parliament’s democratic functions.
If the row creates new and deeper schisms between the Kurdistan Region’s parties, it could weaken their collective clout in upcoming battles with the Iraqi federal government over oil sales, the budget, and territorial disputes.
Around two months ago, Kurdish leaders were hailing the strength of Kurdish unity in Baghdad after they collectively rejected the cabinet selections of then-prime minister-designate Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi.
In a meeting of the various factions on March 4, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani lauded their “unity in addressing the current situation in the country”.
“The president also reiterated the importance of preserving unity and a common stance in regards to the political events in Iraq,” his office said in a statement.
This feat of unity was not replicated on quite the same scale on Thursday when just the two biggest Kurdish parties, the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), approved Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s new cabinet. All other Kurdish parties boycotted the parliamentary session.
The latest spat over parliamentary immunity could further undermine this fragile unity.
What happened?
The saga began when Omar submitted documents to the parliament accusing the prime minister of owning a company and a bank, which could pose a political conflict of interests.
Barzani responded to the accusations by filing a lawsuit against Omar in early April.
The principal of parliamentary immunity, a key feature of democratic systems worldwide, allows MPs to lay criticism against ministers and other legislators without fear of litigation. Under Kurdish law, this has its limits.
Therefore the Kurdish parliament met on Thursday to vote on the revocation of immunity for four MPs for various perceived infractions. Three of them were spared. Only Omar was stripped of his immunity.
The session was attended by 58 MPs out of 111 – most of them KDP members or MPs from minority groups.
KDP: ‘We do not want disunity’
Aware that the move could sow disunity among the parties, the parliament’s deputy speaker Hemin Hawrami, a KDP member, told reporters: “Today’s event will not affect the relations of KDP and Komal.”
The KDP leadership was “in contact” with Komal leader Ali Bapir before the vote, Hawrami said.
“We do not want disunity between parties. The Kurdistan Region’s interests and the challenges with Baghdad on the Kurdistan Region’s [budget] share are more important than immunity,” he said.
“We have to keep our agreements on big issues and I assure you, you will see, what has been said from here and there is only social media chatter which will only last for 48-72 hours.”
Komal: ‘Weird and illogical’
Bapir released a statement on behalf of Komal on Thursday, warning: “The Kurdistan Region and Iraq are going through a sensitive and difficult period, which requires us to keep peace and our unity as much as possible.”
“Holding a parliament meeting at this time and amid this situation – when the public expect the resolution of issues related to their lives – to revoke the immunity of a parliamentarian is a weird and illogical thing,” he said.
Abdulsattar Majeed, head of Komal bloc in the parliament, also told a press conference on Thursday that: “This is a bad development … whose repercussions will be seen in the future and we will see where it will lead the Kurdistan Region to.”
Challenges
Former Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi suspended the KRG’s share of the federal budget in mid-April on the grounds that the Kurdistan Region had failed to deliver its quota of 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to the state marketing firm SOMO – as per their December 2019 agreement.
The KRG sent a delegation to Baghdad to try and resolve the issue. Although there have been several meetings, there seems to have been little progress. All the while, public sector workers in the Kurdistan Region are going unpaid.
Now that Kadhimi has won parliamentary approval for his cabinet, the arithmetic of the Erbil-Baghdad relationship could soon be shaken up.
However, his cabinet currently contains just one Kurd, weakening the Kurdish voice inside the federal government. Two more cabinet posts usually reserved for Kurdish ministers remain unfilled.
This makes Kurdish unity within the Iraqi parliament more important than ever if Kurdish interests are to be protected – particularly the KRG’s share of the federal budget, which is supposed to be paid in exchange for a daily quota of oil.
Erbil and Baghdad have continued to bicker over various versions of the oil-for-budget agreement, with the KRG receiving a share of the 2019 federal budget yet failing to hand over a single barrel of oil.
In December, Baghdad agreed to send Erbil a 12.67 percent share of the federal budget in exchange for 250,000 barrels per day.
However, with world oil prices falling to historic lows, the COVID-19 pandemic cutting international demand, and the KRG’s continued failure to uphold its end of the bargain, Baghdad seems to have run out of patience.
