ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The leader of the Change Movement (Gorran) on Thursday announced the party's withdrawal from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and local governments, just days ahead of the parliamentary election.
“Based on the majority vote of the national assembly members, it was decided to withdraw Gorran from both the Kurdistan Regional Government and local governments,” Dana Ahmed Majid, acting general coordinator of the party, said in a video posted to Facebook.
“This decision is a response to the will and demands of the people of the Kurdistan Region,” he added, promising to rectify past mistakes and “make Gorran strong again to support the people of Kurdistan.”
In the current KRG cabinet, Gorran holds the ministries of labour and social affairs, construction and housing, finance and economy, and trade and industry. Gorran members are also in the posts of deputy Kurdistan Region president and governor of Sulaimani.
Majid said that the decision to quit the government was made on Wednesday by a majority vote in the national assembly, a senior body in the party’s structure.
“Even though the decision is late, it is correct and necessary,” he said.
The Kurdistan Region will hold parliamentary elections on October 20 and parties have been actively courting votes since late September. Gorran outlined its agenda on Thursday, with less than a week remaining in the campaigning period.
The party was slow getting its campaign off the ground because of an internal disagreement, Choman Mohammed, head of Gorran’s electoral list in Sulaimani, said on Monday.
In late September, former general coordinator Omar Sayyid Ali formally transferred leadership of the party to Majid. The ceremony took place in a park in Sulaimani instead of at the party headquarters at Zargata Hill because the sons of Gorran’s founder, the late Nawshirwan Mustafa, had blocked access to the hill, expressing opposition to the appointment of the new leader.
Gorran’s national assembly similarly rejected the appointment of Majid. It also “did not support the party’s participation in the elections,” Nzar Mahmoud, a council member, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
Gorran is a pro-reform party that shook the foundations of the ruling parties when it won 25 seats in the 111-seat regional parliament in 2009 to become the first opposition party in the legislature’s history. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) together received only 59 seats in that vote.
The party, however, made several unpopular decisions that saw it dramatically fall out of favor with voters, including handing power to Mustafa’s sons after his death and opting to make agreements with the KDP and PUK. Supporters saw this as Gorran turning away from its opposition and democratic roots.
In the most recent election - for Iraq's parliament in 2021 - the party failed to win a seat. Following that devastating defeat, all members of Gorran’s governing body, including leader Ali, resigned.
The party says it is now returning to its roots.
“Gorran will re-enter the political scene with a new strategy, returning to Kak Nawshirwan's political plans that he put forth to reform the governance system in the Kurdistan Region,” Majid stated.