ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The owner of the Sulaimani-based NRT media intends to run for the post of prime minister of the Kurdistan Region in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Shaswar Qadir, a self-made Kurdish businessman, has said that he wants to form his own electoral list with the hopes of appealing to younger generations who did not directly experience the rule of the former Saddam Hussein regime.
He had named US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron as examples for entering politics. Qadir is a businessman in his mid-30s.
Qadir remained concerned that the parliamentary election may be postponed, just like the presidential election that has not been held since 2009.
President Masoud Barzani has set November 1 for parliamentary and presidential elections, just over a month after the independence referendum.
The Washington Post ran an opinion piece about the referendum, centering on Qadir’s view of the September 25 vote.
The piece argued that the referendum will not help solve Kurdistan’s problems like providing basic services and a troubling financial crisis.
The author, Jackson Diehl, Washington Post’s deputy opinion editor, writes that Washington is under the impression that Kurdistan is what it used to be five years ago: a peaceful, prospering, emerging, pro-Western democracy whose aspirations for full independence from Iraq are increasingly hard to ignore.
He then goes on to say that much has changed in the past five years, namely the war against ISIS, a US retreat from the Middle East, and Kurd’s own dysfunctions, arguing that the Kurdistan Region is politically and economically “broken.”
He lists the suspended parliament, the expired Kurdish presidency’s term, the high level of debt, and a deeply politicized armed force as signs of the problems the Region is facing.
Diehl claims that President Masoud Barzani’s “distress” call was to announce the referendum to shift focus away from everyday problems.
The referendum is “an excuse by Kurdish leaders to remain in power,” Qadir, told the Washington Post. “The younger generation doesn’t know anything about their fight in the mountains against Saddam Hussein. So the old leaders need another excuse” to continue running the country.
Qadir, born in Sulaimani, made his fortune mainly from real estate projects in the city, particularly German Village where NRT is also based.
Militiamen attacked the NRT TV station in 2011, just days after it first went on air.
The TV station began broadcasting earlier than planned because of months’ long protests against the Kurdish government, mainly calling for an end to corruption. They broadcast unfolding events via live satellite TV, something most of the Region’s TV stations decided not to do at the time.
NRT accused forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) for the attack on their headquarters in Sulaimani.
Qadir himself claimed that he survived an assassination attempt in Sulaimani in 2013.
The Washington Post said Qadir visited Washington to lobby the US to focus on democracy-building in the Kurdistan Region, pushing for free and fair elections instead of the referendum.
He said that the Kurdish region does not have a viable economy and that Turkey and Iran could well block the borders if the referendum goes ahead.
“We don’t have an economy,” he told the Washington Post. “We have one oil pipeline. We don’t have a judicial system. We don’t have a united army. We don’t have a parliament.”
In one post on his Facebook page dated July 14, Qadir said that the people of France, despite being a developed country without large unemployment, were disgusted with the “faces of their old politicians, and elected a new face.”
“But there are some people in here, even some young people, who despite all the misfortunes and miseries, they still have hope in the old parties and old faces,” Qadir added, followed by a note that says he sees no difference between the French and the Kurdish nations as every nation can ask for an improvement of their lives.
He said in another Facebook post that the Kurdish parties have one choice, to leave power “peacefully.”
“The forces of the Kurdistan Region have only one option going forward. It is leaving power peacefully, to further open up towards democracy, and open room for the new generation and new minds. Otherwise, they will be responsible before their nation and history, in light of new changes and new possibilities,” Qadir said on Saturday from Washington.
