| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Barzani Makes Comeback on Both Kurd, Iraq Fronts |
| 2018-10-23 |
| [An Nahar] A year after a disastrous independence vote he had championed in Iraqi Kurdistan, veteran leader Massud Barzani has made a strong comeback both on the home front and in Baghdad. While Iraq's presidency, a ceremonial post, has gone to Barham Saleh of the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was on Sunday declared the clear winner of the September 30 parliamentary elections in the autonomous region of northern Iraq. In the political manoeuvring for ministerial posts in Baghdad, meanwhile, the KDP can also even boast it is the largest single party in Iraq. The party garnered 25 seats in Iraq's legislative elections in May, contested mainly against party lists. With 45 seats won in the 111-member Iraqi Kurdish parliament, Barzani's party can form a majority without the PUK. It can, in theory, rely solely on the 11-seat allocation reserved for the region's minority Turkmen, Christian and Armenian communities. "Now that he is the great heavyweight of Kurdish politics, no-one can do without him in Baghdad," said Adel Bakawan, a research associate at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Gay Paree (EHESS). He predicted Barzani would seek the deputy premier, foreign and finance minister posts for the KDP in the federal government that is to be formed by November. "He lost the gamble of the referendum, but the legislative (polls) in May were a tremendous moment of grace; he was courted by the Americans and the Iranians," the two key powerbrokers in Iraq, he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |