ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is bidding for redoing elections to bypass the nearly two-year-long deadlock over government formation process with the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a senior member of the former said on Sunday, expecting his party to garner enough seats to form the next cabinet.
“One of the practical solutions proposed by the KDP is redoing the elections if we reach a dead-end, because we know that the results will not be the same,” Ahmed Kani, a member of KDP’s Central Committee, told Rudaw.
The PUK and the New Generation Movement (NGM) signed a “comprehensive” agreement in February, merging their respective 23 and 15 seats to reportedly challenge KDP’s grip on power in Erbil and Baghdad.
Kani’s party secured 39 seats in the 100-spot legislature in the October 2024 elections. With neither the KDP nor PUK gaining absolute majority or presenting mutually-acceptable proposals over shares in the cabinet as well as governance mechanisms in the Kurdistan Region, the government formation talks have remained stalled and the Kurdistan Parliament has stayed dysfunctional.
“I personally will not vote for a party that had a certain slogan yesterday and secured my vote, but later worked completely opposite to its program. Let’s hold elections again,” Kani said, in reference to the NGM, which, as an opposition party, based its political program on opposing the political establishment in the Kurdistan Region which is largely dominated by the KDP and PUK.
The senior KDP official stated that he won’t comment on PUK’s standing in the early elections but the NGM “won’t get the same number of votes.”
While claiming that the KDP could get enough votes to form the next government cabinet and activate the parliament, Kani said they “never want” to proceed in this direction without the PUK.
“We consider the strategic interests and geographical reality of Kurdistan,” he noted.
Furthermore, he said that the KDP and its president Masoud Barzani have repeatedly said they will hold elections under the condition of having “one Region, one government, one parliament, and one Peshmerga force."
His remarks came shortly after Qubad Talabani, a member of PUK’s political bureau and Kurdistan Region’s deputy prime minister, said that both the KDP and PUK “have to understand that this government needs true partnership, balance, coexistence, and collaboration.”
“The disputes with the [KDP] are not on [government] posts, but rather on the philosophy of partnership, collaboration, coexistence, and shared governance,” he told reporters.
The political landscape of the Kurdistan Region remains divided between the KDP and the PUK; the former's sphere of influence is concentrated in Erbil and Duhok provinces, while the latter's is centered in Sulaimani.
Both parties have shared rule since the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 1992, despite backsliding into a civil war in the mid-1990s.
Since unifying their separate administrations in 2007, the KDP has almost consistently held premiership, Kurdistan Region Presidency, Kurdistan Region Security Council, and the Ministry of Interior.
Meanwhile, the PUK has been given parliament speaker, Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, and deputies for the president and prime ministers of the Region.
After the 2024 elections, the PUK raised the bar of its demands, asking for the premier or the president as well as swapping the ministries of Peshmerga and interior.
"We have always said that our alternative for the PUK is the PUK itself, but if they do not want that, then the situation will change,” Kani noted.
On Tuesday, President Masoud Parzani urged expediting the government formation talks as the Region is going through a “sensitive and fateful juncture". He called on the political parties to meet soon with "sincerity and a sense of patriotism” to overcome the political deadlock.
“This is a conscientious, national, and patriotic duty, and all sides must handle it with a sense of responsibility and return to the correct path,” he said.