ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The two feuding factions of the Change Movement (Gorran) have agreed to participate in a joint congress on Saturday, after previously holding competing congresses deemed invalid by Iraq’s electoral body.
Rudaw has learned that the congress, set to take place in Sulaimani, will be supervised by Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), which has officially recognized the May 24 meeting and will oversee the vote to elect a new general coordinator.
Gorran has been split into two camps: one headquartered on Zargata Hill and led by the sons of the party’s late founder, Nawshirwan Mustafa, and the other based in Sulaimani’s Kurdsat neighborhood under the leadership of Dana Ahmed Majid, the acting general coordinator.
The Zargata faction held its congress in early April, followed by the Kurdsat faction later that month. However, the electoral commission rejected both - the former due to the absence of commission officials, and the latter for lacking a quorum.
On Thursday, Gorran’s election office in the Kurdsat neighborhood confirmed to Rudaw that “our general congress will take place with the commission’s presence.”
Nizar Mahmood, a Gorran national assembly member from the Zargata faction, also congress participation. “Everything will proceed in accordance with the law and by majority vote. We will go to the congress, adhere to the law, and participate,” he said.
IHEC has ruled that only members registered with Gorran in 2017 - more than 2,100 people - are eligible to vote. Those members are now split between the two rival factions, while some have left politics or joined other parties.
The rift in the party emerged after the death of its founder and repeated poor electoral performances.
Gorran emerged on the scene and made history in 2009 by winning 25 seats in the Kurdistan Region’s 111-seat parliament, becoming the first opposition party to make significant electoral gains, campaigning on a platform of reform and transparency.
The party, however, has suffered a steep decline in popularity, particularly after controversial decisions such as handing power to the sons of founder Mustafa following his death, and entering into alliances with the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - moves many viewed as a betrayal of its reformist roots.
In Iraq’s 2021 parliamentary elections, Gorran failed to secure a single seat. In the aftermath of the loss, all members of the party’s governing body, including then-leader Omar Sayyid Ali, resigned.
Last September, Ali formally handed over leadership to Majid in a public ceremony held in a park in Sulaimani after Mustafa’s sons blocked access to the party’s Zargata Hill headquarters in protest of Majid’s appointment.
Just ten days before the Kurdistan Region’s October 2024 parliamentary elections, Majid announced Gorran’s withdrawal from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and local administrations. In that vote, Gorran secured only one seat.