SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region - Twenty months after the October 2024 parliamentary elections, the Kurdistan Region's tenth cabinet has yet to be formed. As the deadlock among political parties continues, Kurdish leaders are weighing a narrowing set of options, including turning to Baghdad - a path some warn risks eroding the autonomy the Kurdistan Region has spent decades building.
In the vote, the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) won 39 of the 100 seats in the regional legislature, while its rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), secured 23. With no party achieving a majority, the two sides have since held on-and-off talks to form a new cabinet, with the sticking point remaining disagreements over ministerial posts and governing arrangements.
What began as a routine political dispute, however, appears to have metastasized into a structural crisis, exposing a fundamental shift in how power is contested in the semi-autonomous region.
Things took an even more interesting turn in July when PUK leader Bafel Talabani joined forces with Shaswar Abdulwahid, head of the New Generation Movement (NGM), the Region's largest opposition party with 15 seats in the Kurdish parliament, formalizing a coalition dubbed the "Balance and Prosperity Agreement."
"This isn't a government formation agreement - this is the start of a project to change the form of governance in the Kurdistan Region," Abdulwahid remarked during the signing ceremony as Bafel Talabani echoed the sentiment, stating it "a new day for Kurdistan."
By combining the PUK's 23 seats and NGM's 15, the nascent bloc now holds 38 of the 100 seats in the regional legislature - nearly matching the ruling KDP's 39. Since formalizing the alliance, Abdulwahid has clarified that its core demands include either the post of prime minister or president of the Kurdistan Region - both historically held by the KDP.
The coalition drew attention specifically because it was born soon after Abdulwahid was released from prison. On August 12, 2025, security forces in Sulaimani arrested Abdulwahid. He was later sentenced to five months in prison for reportedly threatening former members of his party. On January 14, he was released. As early as late January, rumors of an agreement between New Generation and PUK started swirling around.
The KDP rejected the alliance entirely, dismissing it as a "prison agreement" coerced while Abdulwahid was detained. "A prison alliance cannot be called a political one," said Hemin Hawrami, a member of the KDP Politburo, in a mid-June interview with Rudaw.
Similarly, KDP lawmaker in the regional parliament Kazhan Mohammed similarly added that recognizing the bloc would set a "dangerous precedent."
The NGM leader, however, was quick to reject the framing, though his defense conceded more to critics than it refuted. "Let's say this is a prison agreement - the Turkish state negotiates with [jailed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah] Ocalan from prison too, and [then-African National Congress leader Nelson] Mandela negotiated from prison too. This is normal," Abdulwahid said.
Yet beneath the apparent political maneuvering lies a deeper dynamic: a generational turnover in Kurdish leadership operating within a region devoid of neutral state institutions.
‘Dispute of the elites’
Deadlocks are not unprecedented in Erbil. Following the 2018 parliamentary elections, the KDP brushed off PUK demands that both sides agreed on the governorship of the disputed Kirkuk province before forming a KRG by forming a preliminary government alongside the then-prominent opposition Change (Gorran) Movement in July 2019, forcing the PUK to eventually acquiesce without having its demands met.
This time, the KDP and PUK - as the Kurdistan Region's two major parties - have grown further apart in recent months. Prior to the Iraqi elections, the two parties were close to reaching an agreement, as reflected in a February 4, 2025 joint statement, in which they claimed to have reached "a shared understanding and preliminary agreement on most topics."
Even then, the two parties were at loggerheads over the division of major ministries. The PUK reportedly asked for the natural resources ministry, the foreign relations bureau, and the interior ministry. The latter caused the most friction between the two parties, with the KDP unwilling to cede control.
However, the playbook of forming a government without the PUK no longer works, as the structural foundation of Kurdish politics has shifted, driven by changes to both the electoral rules and the leadership makeup of the ruling parties.
The October 2024 elections were conducted under a new framework imposed by Iraq's Federal Supreme Court. The new framework eliminated a large number of minority quota seats, which had concentrated in KDP’s areas of influence (Erbil and Duhok) and had for a long time sided with KDP in the parliament. The rulings effectively dismantled the KDP's traditional structural advantage by eliminating minority quota seats and dividing the Kurdistan Region into four electoral districts of Erbil, Duhok, Sulaimani, and Halabja, creating the mathematical opening for the PUK to challenge the KDP's dominance.
Simultaneously, a new generation of party leaders has emerged - especially after power within the PUK was consolidated in 2021 in the hands of the party's now-leader Bafel Talabani, who ousted his co-president and cousin, Lahur Talabany, and has sought to reverse years of perceived concessions to the KDP.
"When the KDP realized they had more seats in the legislature than the PUK, they thought they could limit the PUK's power," said Sardar Aziz, independent political analyst and researcher and a former advisor in the Kurdish parliament. "The PUK, however, did not submit to that reality and worked to balance that pressure," he added.
"The current situation is the PUK trying to prove they are not inferior to the KDP, and the KDP refusing to accept them as equals," Aziz explained.
Hamzeh Hadad, an adjunct fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security think-tank, views Talabani’s strategy as personal and institutional positioning.
"Bafel is showing that he is a political player who can make bold moves," Hadad noted, adding that “this is his way of preparing for a leadership transition within the Barzani family, whether that means engaging with [Kurdistan Region President] Nechirvan or [Prime Minister] Masrour Barzani.”
While Bafel Talabani has in recent years sidelined the PUK's old guard - including figures like Mala Bakhtiyar and Sheikh Jaffar - the KDP's own generational transition remains underway. KDP leader Masoud Barzani continues to wield ultimate authority, while his two deputies - President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani - manage distinct executive and security portfolios.
"The KDP is also going through a generational transition, and that is yet to fully mature," Aziz explained, characterizing the government formation deadlock as a "dispute of the elites" among rising party heirs.
Fragmented institutions, federal factor
In an established democracy, inter-party disputes are traditionally resolved by judicial and legislative bodies when mediation falls short. In the Kurdistan Region, however, both mechanisms remain underdeveloped or partisan, while the core vulnerability lies in the security architecture.
Despite decades of Western-backed unification efforts, the Region’s Peshmerga forces, internal security forces (Asayish), and intelligence agencies remain divided along party lines. Forces deployed in Erbil and Duhok provinces align with the KDP, while those in Sulaimani and Halabja align with the PUK.
"Institutions are where such disputes [among parties] should be organized, settled, and turned into productive competition," Aziz said, noting that "in Kurdistan, the civil-military relationship is fundamentally political and the armed forces answer back to the parties, not the state."
This institutional fracture is compounded by the absence of a regional constitution. Veteran Kurdish politician Mala Bakhtiyar said in a recent interview that the Kurdistan Region "doesn't have a constitution. This is our biggest problem. Peshmerga forces are not united. We haven't even unified our police. There are two distinct geographies within this Region,” he said.
With domestic mediation initiatives - including proposals by KDP leader Masoud Barzani and Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) head Salah al-Din Baha al-Din - failing to break the stalemate, political actors are increasingly turning to Baghdad.
"You cannot separate federal politics from Kurdistan's domestic crisis," Hadad said. "The formation of governments in Baghdad has become more protracted, resulting in behind-the-scenes deals that spill back over into regional politics."
What’s next
Amid the current impasse, three distinct scenarios are emerging as the most likely outcomes.
The first is a negotiated compromise, the traditional path, though maximalist demands have made it increasingly difficult. The KDP maintains that the premiership and presidency are non-starters, while the PUK-NGM alliance has effectively foreclosed the possibility of the KDP forming a government with smaller opposition parties alone.
The second is snap elections, an option the KDP has floated recently, suggesting a return to the polls may be the best way out. KDP spokesperson Mahmoud Mohammed recently said that if negotiations between parties fail, "there is no other solution."
However, calling new elections requires reactivating the current parliament to convene and pass a dissolution bill - a step some opposition parties refuse to support, fearing the parliament’s activation would grant the KDP the opportunity to sidestep the PUK-NGM alliance by voting in a temporary Parliament Speaker who can then task KDP’s candidates for Presidency and Premiership to form the government.
The third is turning to Iraq's highest judicial authority, the Federal Supreme Court, as the PUK and opposition groups increasingly turn to Baghdad's legal infrastructure for leverage in Erbil.
The PUK leadership council has considered filing a lawsuit at the Court to formally strip the current cabinet of its executive powers and reduce it to a caretaker government. Opposition groups may also ask the Court to order the dissolution of the regional parliament.
While some PUK figures have raised the extreme option of administrative partition - devolving financial and security authority into autonomous zonal governments - senior PUK leadership, including spokesperson Saadi Ahmed Pira, have dismissed such proposals as "borderline treason."
As both Aziz and Hadad point out, the Iraqi Constitution of 2005 was designed to accommodate a pre-existing, unified Kurdish region, not to provide a mechanism for its dissolution. There is virtually no appetite in Baghdad to entertain the creation of new regions, and no clear constitutional pathway to unravel the current one.
As a result, the ultimate risk for the Kurdistan Region is not formal dissolution but gradual erosion. As political elites remain locked in a generational struggle for dominance, power and administrative initiative are steadily draining toward Baghdad.
By failing to build shared institutions capable of managing internal competition, the new generation of Kurdish leaders risks presiding over a regional government with far less autonomy than the one they inherited.
