ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Despite opposition to holding a new session from senior Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) officials, the Leadership Council went ahead with a meeting on Thursday and continued their adoption of new bylaws for the party. Those opposed to the changes have to come to terms with our decisions, meeting chairman Mustafah Chawrash said on Thursday. The Leadership Council is the PUK’s main body for formulating party bylaws and electing new leadership. The PUK is one of the ruling parties in the Kurdistan region, and takes part in a coalition government with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Change Movement. Chawrash told reporters after the meeting that they had discussed and passed the remaining 12 of 77 bylaws at today’s meeting. 65 bylaws were passed over the last several days of meetings. Thursday's bylaws, on which Chawrash did not elaborate, include a requirement that women occupy at least 25% of decision making roles within the party, and a method for other political parties to merge with PUK. “All the party officials in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, be it for [party] congress or party affairs, have to be elected and not merely appointed…so that no individual is deprived of their right,” Chawrash told reporters at a press conference following the Leadership Council meeting. Chawrash further added that all the bylaws passed at Thursday’s meeting had to be discussed with the Supreme Political Council, “so that everyone [between the two organs of PUK] is in agreement” for the party to function smoothly. On Tuesday, following the Leadership Council’s earlier meetings, it was rumored https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/11022020 that the two cousins, Bafel Talabani and Lahur Sheikh Jangi, were elected co-leaders of the party, information which Chawrash denied the very same day. Then on Wednesday, Kosrat Rasul Ali, head of the Supreme Political Council called on the Leadership Council to stop its meetings to achieve consensus within the party before more decisions are made. Following the statement, both cousins Talabani and Shiekh Jangi visited Ali, Masoud Mala Hamza, Ali’s media secretary, told Rudaw on the matter. This latest internal disagreement reflects deep-seated tensions within the party that have grown more pronounced since last year’s contentious party congress. On December 21, following years of delay, the PUK held the first party congress since the death of Jalal Talabani in 2017. Party rivalries and a host of other issues had prevented the congress from taking place. Internal rivalries over party leadership surfaced soon after party founder Mam Jalal fell ill in 2012. The founder never recovered, and a fierce leadership competition between different wings of the party. Members of the Talabani family, including his nephew Lahur, all vied for control over the party, while other non-family figures such as Barham Salih and Kosrat Rasul resisted such efforts in an attempt to prevent cronyism. Salih eventually split from the party toward the end of 2017, to form his own party, only to return to the PUK in 2018. The PUK congress last December also voted to form the Supreme Political Council, which is headed by Kosrat Rasul Ali, the party’s former acting leader. The council acts as the party's official representation and performs a mostly advisory role. The PUK was founded in 1975 after breaking away from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The two parties fought a long civil war in the 1990s before agreeing to share power in a united administration. They however both retain their own Peshmerga units and geographical areas of influence across Kurdistan.
