The Gorran Movement and Kurdistan’s Referendum on Independence

In an interview this week with Rudaw, Gorran Movement spokesman Shorsh Haji said that “Holding a referendum and independence for Kurdistan have been founding principles of the Gorran party since its formation. This is a national cause which shouldn’t be discussed between two political parties. Rather, it should be debated and voted in the parliament as the highest legal authority in the region....We are against any referendum which is done as a matter of political rhetoric….”

 

This argument strikes your humble columnist as pure sophistry. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “sophistry” as “subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.” Let us examine each part of this statement in turn. First, Gorran insists that a referendum and independence together constitute a national cause that should be above politics and the self-serving interests of particular political parties.

 

That sounds quite reasonable and your humble columnist whole heartedly agrees. But then Gorran argues that the issue should be “debated” in parliament and (later in the same interview) demands the re-opening of Kurdistan’s parliament to do so.

 

Yet we know that the Gorran Movement has all kinds of demands for the reopening of the parliament, including changes to how the Kurdistan Region’s president is elected (they want to this via parliament rather than a direct vote from the people, which their candidate would almost certainly lose).

 

Their uncompromising demands and actions have a lot to do with why parliament stopped functioning in 2014, although in this the other political parties also share blame. Nonetheless, by demanding the re-opening of parliament before a referendum can even be discussed, the Gorran Movement effectively holds the Region’s national interest hostage to their political demands.

 

If a referendum and independence form a “national cause,” what exactly do they wish to debate? Most likely, they want to use what leverage they have on this national cause to extract political concessions from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). They cannot wait for independence to do this, and hence they prioritize their political interests over independence.

 
In the same interview, Mr. Haji states that “Under no circumstances are we against holding a referendum and declaring independence for Kurdistan. However, our opinion on the timing of declaring a state is different from that of the KDP. Now, the PUK is following the KDP’s position, too.”

 

Essentially, the KDP and PUK have managed to bury their particular political interests and differences long enough to focus on a crucial national cause dear to the hearts of the vast majority of Kurdistan’s people. Because Gorran knows that the people of Kurdistan dearly want a referendum and independence, Mr. Haji claims to support both but then throws up all kinds of caveats and conditions in order to make the project practically impossible. 

 

“The timing is not good,” Mr. Haji says, in a response strikingly similar to Baghdad’s answer every time the Kurds asked for a referendum on the disputed territories. According to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, that referendum was supposed to be held by December 2007. Arab leaders in Baghdad always said “Yes, yes, of course, but the timing right now is not good. Bukra inshallah.” Of course, anyone who has spent enough time in the region knows that “bukra [tomorrow] inshallah” actually means “forget about it.”

 

Rudaw asked Mr. Haji “Why do you doubt the independence process and regard it as political rhetoric and not serious?” He responded that “The process is political rhetoric. Now is the time to get Kurdistan’s house in order, unify the Kurdish discourse and make preparations for all possibilities and eventualities. It is a matter of doubt for two political parties to come together and decide on the fate of a nation. And the doubt is well placed for it is only two parties who are deciding this question without referring to the parliament.”

 

In this response Mr. Haji sounds just like all the outside critics and opponents of Kurdistan’s independence, insisting that the Kurds must be unified even before a referendum on the issue. The only difference is that the Gorran movement is not an outsider, but rather the only major Kurdish party that is hampering unity on the issue. Then they turn around and repeat that “this cannot be done without unity!” They will not even discuss the issue with the KDP and PUK.

 

Although your humble columnist is not generally fond of this sort of accusation, he must in this case wonder whose agenda the Gorran Movement is serving when it adopts this attitude.

 

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.