On May 19 the Kurdistan Region parliament announced the names of five candidates for the presidency. Among them was incumbent Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani – nephew of former president Masoud Barzani.
Nechirvan is the nominee for the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) – the biggest party in the parliament – and the favorite to win.
Presidential powers
The new president will have the same powers as his predecessor. He will be the supreme executive power in the Kurdistan Region, commander-in-chief of all armed forces, and representative of all ethnic and religious communities.
He will also supervise relations between Erbil and Baghdad and represent the Kurdish nation in the Iraqi Supreme Central Political Council, which includes the Iraqi president, prime minister, and speaker of parliament.
Unlike Iraq, where the president’s powers are merely ceremonial, the powers of the Kurdistan Region president count for a lot.
Some parties in the Kurdistan Region, including the New Generation Movement, are already raising concerns over the “unchecked” powers of the presidency and parliament’s inability to hold him to account.
Others have defended the strength of the presidency.
Diplomacy
Nechirvan Barzani is broadly credited with restoring the Region’s diplomatic relations with Baghdad and the outside world following the Kurdistan independence referendum of September 2017. Some parties in the Region have already pinned hope on his leadership and diplomacy.
The new president will “increase the Kurdistan Region’s diplomatic engagement” with the outside world, Hevidar Ahmad, an MP with the KDP bloc in Kurdistan parliament, told Rudaw English.
“He will also fill the vacuum that currently exists with Baghdad and defend the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.”
Despite his broad diplomatic connections abroad, Barzani will face formidable challenges at home.
Party rivalries
Trust between parties in the Kurdistan Region has eroded due to disagreements over the political process and governance system. Four Kurdish parties accused the KDP and PUK of rigging the September 2018 parliamentary election in their favor.
The Change Movement (Gorran), Islamic Group (Komal), Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), and New Generation questioned the election outcome following allegations of fraud, denied by the KDP and PUK.
The new president will have to navigate these divisions and mistrust.
“Trust among political parties in the Kurdistan Region has fundamentally weakened. The new president’s domestic challenge is to restore trust between them,” Dr Rewaz Fayeq, an MP with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) faction in the Kurdish parliament, told Rudaw English.
Corruption
Another major challenge is corruption. High-level officials within the ruling Kurdish parties acknowledge the lack of transparency in revenues and expenditure.
“Levels of corruption in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, while lower than in Iraq as a whole, are relatively high compared to other countries in the region,” according to a report by Transparency International.
“The less officials steal, the more prosperous the lives of people will become,” Mala Bakhtiar, head of the PUK politburo’s executive body, said in a recent press conference in Sulaimani.
“That’s it. Embezzle less, dears, so there will be more prosperity for people. Prosperity is an important thing for people.”
"There is zero justice in our country. Corruption is prevalent.”
The KRG Integrity Commission submitted 198 corruption cases to courts in the past year alone – just 33 of which have concluded – 16 in Duhok, 15 in Erbil, and two in Sulaimani.
The Commission estimates nearly 298.5 billion dinars ($250 million) is wrapped up in corruption cases. They have so far recuperated almost 5.4 billion dinars ($4.5 million), mostly in Sulaimani province.
“The amount we have indicated in the report doesn’t necessarily mean it is the actual amount of money involved in corruption cases in Kurdistan. There are many cases that haven’t been referred to us,” said Ahmad Anwar, head of the Commission.
In a region increasingly under the scrutiny of the international community, the new president “will face big challenges, namely the problem of corruption which is more dangerous than terrorism or the Islamic State (ISIS),” Dr Sherko Jawdat, an MP with the KIU faction in Kurdistan parliament, told Rudaw English.
The new president should “ensure sovereignty of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government and work on transparency in expenditure and revenues of the region,” he added.
He should work to institutionalize Kurdistan Region’s foreign relations on the basis of the Region’s “constitutional entity” and “carry out reforms in the sectors of oil, finance, and domestic revenues,” Soran Omar, an MP with Komal faction in Kurdistan parliament, told Rudaw English.
Iraq ranks among the most corrupt nations in the world.
Peshmerga forces
Another major challenge is the need to break the ties between the parties and the armed forces. Both the KDP and the PUK control units of the Peshmerga – a relationship which seriously undermines democratic institutions.
The Region’s western allies are supporting a package of reforms aimed at breaking these ties and bringing the armed forces under the exclusive command of the Ministry of Peshmerga. But progress has been slow.
“We and the KDP have agreed on principle to retain military decisions until Peshmerga forces become national,” PUK spokesperson Latif Sheikh Omar recently told VOA.
Unifying and nationalizing these forces is a daunting task for any president. But the PUK MP was optimistic the new president can “tackle this problem if there is political will on the part of the KDP and PUK.”
“They can help the president in these matters.”
Disputed territories
Erbil and Baghdad have long been at odds over the disputed territories covered by Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution. These territories include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Fifteen years since the constitution was drafted, little progress has been made.
Nechirvan Barzani already looks set to prioritize the issue.
In a recent letter to Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Barzani for the second consecutive year called on the UN mission to Iraq (UNAMI) to prioritize the disputed territories in its agenda.
Despite its opposition to the powers vested in the president, Komal hopes the new president uses his diplomatic leverage to work on the disputed territories issue and carry out institutional reforms.
“Through his connections, we hope he improves relations with Iraq, resolves the problem of disputed areas including Kirkuk, works on the constitution and article 140,” Soran Omar, an MP with Komal faction in Kurdistan parliament, told Rudaw English.
Minorities
The Region’s ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and Yezidis, look to the new president with hope.
Klara Odisho, an MP with the Chaldean and Assyrian faction in the Kurdistan parliament, said she hopes the new president’s agenda enshrines and ensures the “interests of the entire Kurdistani nation – people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.”
Controversy
Masoud Barzani was the first to take the presidency when the post was created in 2005. Kurdish parties have long disputed the strength of the executive, even questioning whether the post was needed at all.
The PUK, Gorran, Komal and KIU reached a deal to convene the parliament to amend the presidential law on October 12, 2015. The amendment would have seen the president elected by the parliament rather than the electorate and reduce his influence to mere ceremonial power.
In order to stop the amendment, the KDP blocked Gorran MPs and the parliamentary speaker Yousif Mohammed from entering Erbil on the day of the vote.
The KDP later sacked Gorran ministers from the government, prompting the party to officially withdraw from the government. Yousif resigned as speaker and as an MP in December 2017.
The problem of the presidency remained a stumbling block until Masoud Barzani stepped down in November 2017 in the aftermath of Kurdistan Region’s referendum for independence from Iraq, having already extended his term in office.
The parliament then passed a bill suspending the office of the presidency and distributed his powers among legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government in July 2018.
The parliament finally passed a bill reactivating the presidency and amended the presidential law in early May. The new law will see the president elected by parliament.
Kurdistan parliamentary election
The Kurdistan Region held parliamentary elections on September 30, 2018, with the ruling KDP winning 45 seats in the 111-seat legislature.
The PUK won 21 seats, and the Change Movement (Gorran) 12.
No party won an outright majority to form the government alone, forcing the KDP to negotiate a coalition deal with its nearest rivals, the PUK and Gorran.
In the meantime, the Kurdistan Region has been run by a caretaker government.
