cover image: Intra-PUK-rivalry-and-its-Implications-for-the-Iraqi-Kurdish

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Intra-PUK-rivalry-and-its-Implications-for-the-Iraqi-Kurdish

27 Dec 2021

The KDP and PUK signed an agreement to share power between Masoud Barzani, the President of the KDP, and Jalal Talabani, the Secretary General of the PUK, and to unify the two separate administrations created after the end of the KDP-PUK fighting in 1998. [...] Lahur and Bafel were in favour of postponing the referendum, while traditional PUK leaders such as the First Deputy for the Secretary General of the PUK, Kosrat Rasul, the Governor of Kirkuk, Najmadin Karim 2 Such divisions raised doubts if the PUK could maintain the balance of power, and importantly, the power-sharing agreement with the KDP and the Head of Peshmerga‘s 70th division, Sheikh Ja’far. [...] For the KDP, Lahur’s clandestine dealing with Baghdad did not just mean the defeat of the Peshmerga in Kirkuk, but also the entire project of the referendum: the most important project of Masoud Barzani, the then president of the KRI. [...] In other words, despite the development of government institutions, the government has only partially reunified, and the two parties have maintained the key power structures of the two-administration period.11 Years of opposition to KDP rule not only by the PUK, but also the Gorran Movement and the new actor of the New Generation Movement have created a rough ground for the KDP. [...] Since the events in July, PUK officials’ discourse has significantly changed, from a rhetoric of opposition to the KRI political system to a more of a rhetoric of founder and defender of the system.18 This does not mean that KDP and PUK can restore the post-sharing arrangement of the 7 Since the first Kurdistan elections in 1992, the balance of power between the KDP and PUK has never been so skewe.
Pages
10
Published in
Turkey