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Kurdistan
Left to right: New Generation MPs Sirwan Baban, Diari Anwer and Mem Burhan Qani. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Chaos has once again engulfed the upstart, populist opposition party New Generation as MPs of the party’s parliamentary bloc in the Kurdistan Parliament on Monday announced their split amid disputes in the party over pensions.
In a joint statement posted to social media on Monday, New Generation MPs Mem Burhan Qani, Sirwan Baban, and Diari Anwer announced their formal split from the bloc.
“It has been some months now, because of the movement's President is derailing the faction and movement of New Generation from its path, we have not been part of either the faction or the movement, and now we announce our formal split,” the three MPs said in criticism of party founding leader Shaswar Abdulwahid.
The three had already split unofficially from the bloc last year, following a scandal in which Abdulwahid had allegedly threatened party MP Shadi Nawzad with circulation of doctored nude videos of her.
The revelation led to deep internal division, with its MPs in Iraqi and Kurdish parliaments leaving due to what they saw as a monopolization of power by Abdulwahid.
Nawzad left the party in response to the scandal, and with today’s triple departure, the New Generation’s Kurdistan parliamentary bloc has shrunk from eight members to four. The bloc’s size in Iraqi parliament was halved from 4 to 2, when members Raboun Marouf and Sarkawt Shamsulddin severed their ties amid last year’s scandal.
The latest escalation seems to be due to the contentious salary and pension reform bill passed in the Region’s parliament last Thursday.
“Like we promised our voters, we will in no way accept the pension fund for MPs and that we would be more than ready to relinquish our salary if it is called for,” the three MPs said.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) insists the bill, which 89 of a 111 MP total approved, will result in fairness for public service employee pay. The bill will officially be made law when it is signed by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani.
According to the reform law, an MP must be aged 45 or over and have served for 15 years in order to retire on a pension worth 50 percent of their salary. In other words, an MP with an 8.2 million dinar salary will receive 4.1 million dinars a month when retired. A second group includes MPs less than 45 years old, or who have served less than 15 years as a parliamentarian. According to Article 7 of the bill, these MPs will retire on a pension worth 15 percent of their salary.
The bill contains a section which allows lawmakers to reject their pensions. After the bill is turned into a law, any MP wanting to reject the pension will have 30 days to do so.
New Generation MPs left the parliament session and did not vote for the bill it heavily criticized.
One of the MPs, Sirwan Baban, spoke to Rudaw over the weekend, to shed light on the internal disputes of the bloc. He said head of the New Generation bloc Kazim Farouq has been unwilling to reject the parliamentary pension.
According to Baban, who shared the document he had prepared and signed three days before the Thursday vote that pledged to relinquish claim to the pension, bloc chief Farouq was unwilling to sign off on the abandonment of his entitlement.
However, party founder Abdulwahid claimed on Sunday that New Generation MPs had sent their pledge documents relinquishing their financial claims to the pension, explaining it was part of the party program “and its vision for reform and the way public funds are managed”.
In a press conference with his four remaining MPs, Abdulwahid announced that his party’s MPs “were the first MPs officially” relinquishing their pension funds, saying the party was remaining true to its election promises.
Abdulwahid claimed that the three MPs who announced their split on Monday had not filled the forms out. Failure to complete the forms within 48 hours means “we would expel them from the [New Generation] Movement,” he threatened.
“For us at the New Generation, the number of MPs don’t matter, whether it is 4, 8, or 7, it is that there are members who are principled and remain true to their words,” Abdulwahid posited.
In a joint statement posted to social media on Monday, New Generation MPs Mem Burhan Qani, Sirwan Baban, and Diari Anwer announced their formal split from the bloc.
“It has been some months now, because of the movement's President is derailing the faction and movement of New Generation from its path, we have not been part of either the faction or the movement, and now we announce our formal split,” the three MPs said in criticism of party founding leader Shaswar Abdulwahid.
The three had already split unofficially from the bloc last year, following a scandal in which Abdulwahid had allegedly threatened party MP Shadi Nawzad with circulation of doctored nude videos of her.
The revelation led to deep internal division, with its MPs in Iraqi and Kurdish parliaments leaving due to what they saw as a monopolization of power by Abdulwahid.
Nawzad left the party in response to the scandal, and with today’s triple departure, the New Generation’s Kurdistan parliamentary bloc has shrunk from eight members to four. The bloc’s size in Iraqi parliament was halved from 4 to 2, when members Raboun Marouf and Sarkawt Shamsulddin severed their ties amid last year’s scandal.
The latest escalation seems to be due to the contentious salary and pension reform bill passed in the Region’s parliament last Thursday.
“Like we promised our voters, we will in no way accept the pension fund for MPs and that we would be more than ready to relinquish our salary if it is called for,” the three MPs said.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) insists the bill, which 89 of a 111 MP total approved, will result in fairness for public service employee pay. The bill will officially be made law when it is signed by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani.
According to the reform law, an MP must be aged 45 or over and have served for 15 years in order to retire on a pension worth 50 percent of their salary. In other words, an MP with an 8.2 million dinar salary will receive 4.1 million dinars a month when retired. A second group includes MPs less than 45 years old, or who have served less than 15 years as a parliamentarian. According to Article 7 of the bill, these MPs will retire on a pension worth 15 percent of their salary.
The bill contains a section which allows lawmakers to reject their pensions. After the bill is turned into a law, any MP wanting to reject the pension will have 30 days to do so.
New Generation MPs left the parliament session and did not vote for the bill it heavily criticized.
One of the MPs, Sirwan Baban, spoke to Rudaw over the weekend, to shed light on the internal disputes of the bloc. He said head of the New Generation bloc Kazim Farouq has been unwilling to reject the parliamentary pension.
According to Baban, who shared the document he had prepared and signed three days before the Thursday vote that pledged to relinquish claim to the pension, bloc chief Farouq was unwilling to sign off on the abandonment of his entitlement.
However, party founder Abdulwahid claimed on Sunday that New Generation MPs had sent their pledge documents relinquishing their financial claims to the pension, explaining it was part of the party program “and its vision for reform and the way public funds are managed”.
In a press conference with his four remaining MPs, Abdulwahid announced that his party’s MPs “were the first MPs officially” relinquishing their pension funds, saying the party was remaining true to its election promises.
Abdulwahid claimed that the three MPs who announced their split on Monday had not filled the forms out. Failure to complete the forms within 48 hours means “we would expel them from the [New Generation] Movement,” he threatened.
“For us at the New Generation, the number of MPs don’t matter, whether it is 4, 8, or 7, it is that there are members who are principled and remain true to their words,” Abdulwahid posited.
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