SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – A co-founder and leader of Kurdistan’s Change Movement (Gorran) resigned from the party in protest, exposing divisions days before Iraqi elections and as the newly powerful party finalizes terms for partnership in the next Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Salar Aziz said he resigned over “authoritarianism” by party leader Nawshirwan Mustafa. He claimed Mustafa had carried out a “coup” against “friends and democracy.”
"I am always for change, but I announce that I have lost hope in the management of Gorran and have no more relation or obligation with it," Aziz said in his resignation letter.
The frictions surface at an inopportune time for Gorran, which is heading into the Iraqi legislative elections on Wednesday. They coincide with the deadline that Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani has given for political parties to end their months-long negotiations and declare the next Kurdistan government.
There are allegations that the timing chosen by Aziz is no coincidence.
Gorran’s star has been rising since elections last September for Kurdistan’s own legislature. At the polls, Gorran trounced the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), taking its place as the second most powerful political movement after the giant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The poll defeat added to the woes of the PUK, which has been rudderless and wracked with divisions ever since its leader Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke in December 2012 and was flown to Germany, where he remains since.
The political fight is over PUK’s insistence that, in the division of power, it must have the interior ministry, which the KDP has reportedly refused. So important is it for the PUK to maintain its power – which it exercises especially in Sulaimani and through its own Peshmarga military and robust backing from neighboring Iran – that PUK officials have made various threats about what could happen if the PUK is ignored.
Its officials have variously warned that the PUK army would not take orders from anyone else, that the party could go into opposition, or that it could even boycott the KRG altogether unless its demand for security positions are met.
Aziz came out with his claims just as Gorran heads for greater power and the PUK struggles and flails to hang on to the influence it used to enjoy as the KDP’s “Strategic Partner” in the outgoing government.
Aziz claimed that Mustafa is engineering a plot to stir up trouble in Sulaimani, the power base for both the PUK and Gorran.
“There is a plan to stir up turmoil and unrest to weaken Sulaimani and stir social peace,” Aziz said. He claimed one of the reasons Mustafa was doing this was to “dismantle the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan."
Pro-Gorran social media pages fiercely attacked Aziz, accusing him of selling out to the PUK.
“This is a sellout to the PUK, not about the wrong policies of Gorran,” said one Internet commentator. “If he was right he would have waited until after the election,” said one more Gorran supporter. Another expressed joy over the resignation, saying, "It’s time for young leaders to come up. Mustafa knows what he is doing.”
Gorran was born after Mustafa and others broke away from the PUK in 2009. There has been no love lost between the two rivals since then.
Aziz strongly denounced Gorran's participation in the next Kurdish cabinet. "If power was the end goal, then it was better to work within the PUK, as that would have provided greater leverage against other political parties," Aziz said in his resignation.
His departure comes only days after another Gorran senior official, Osman Banimarani, resigned from Gorran for similar reasons and joined his former party, the PUK. Rudaw sources say there are other dissident voices within the Gorran leadership who have not yet decided which way they will go.
According to Aziz, Gorran has formed a partnership with the KDP. He said it has stopped its media campaign against the KDP and focused it on the PUK. He said that most Gorran leaders had agreed it was wiser to work with the PUK in Sulaimanti, in order to counter the immense power of the KDP.
"But the sudden coup of the Gorran leader was a poisonous dagger at his friends and the democratic and moral principles within Gorran,” Aziz added, directing his criticism at Mustafa.
In the letter, he also said that sidelining the PUK in the next Kurdish government was a mistake, because of the armed Peshmarga forces under its control.
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