The times they are a-Changing

tauringhuang.

Jul 30th 2009 | SULAYMANIYAH
From The Economist print edition

A new party dents a Kurdish duopoly. But does it bring independence closer?

Reuters

Barzani gives them the fingerTHE Kurds still have a dream. One day most of them hope to cut their ties with Iraq and end their lot as the largest stateless people in the Middle East by establishing a sovereign Kurdistan, starting with what is now northern Iraq. (There may be 24m Kurds, all told, living mainly in four countries in the region: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.) Arab Iraqis reject this dream, fearing that Kurdish secession would destroy their country and, by the by, cost it a lot of oil. So, under American pressure, in 2003 they granted the Kurds some autonomy, which the Kurds have cherished; the Arabs hoped it would be enough to placate them. But every little shift in Iraqi Kurdish politics is judged by whether it brings sovereignty closer. Whether regional elections on July 25th have done so is open to question.

What is indisputable is that the Kurds’ two-decade-old experiment with democracy has passed a milestone. For the first time, their regional parliament in Erbil will have a real opposition. The Change movement, a collection of civil-society campaigners, won about a quarter of the seats, and other opposition groups notched up at least 15% of them, ending the parliament’s reputation as a rubber stamp. “Change is here to stay,” says Asus Hardi, an independent editor.

Part of Change’s appeal is its demand for more autonomy. But the main reason for its success is its opposition to the perceived corruption of the two main parties. Many Kurds have been disgusted by the extent to which people tied to the ruling clans, the Barzanis and the Talabanis, have lined their pockets. Despite regular elections since 1992, the two have acted in a quasi-feudal fashion, controlling a lion’s share of business while also running security. Even after losing almost a third of their seats, they will still be able to form another government, having run in the election on a joint list.

Masoud Barzani was comfortably re-elected as the region’s president. But the old spoils system, run by his Kurdistan Democratic Part (KDP) and the Talabanis’ Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), may be beginning to break down. The two clans’ power, especially that of the Talabanis, from whose party the Change movement was mainly drawn, has been weakened. The PUK may even start to fade. And the Talabanis’ old rivals, the Barzanis, may now face unprecedented and unwelcome scrutiny of their finances.

As an exercise in democracy, the election was far from perfect. Change credibly alleged large-scale voter fraud. At polling stations KDP people wearing the Kurds’ traditional baggy trousers and embroidered sashes danced away, while behind the scenes their colleagues are said to have stuffed ballot boxes. Some clan loyalists are said to have voted 20 times. Yet the electoral commission, dominated by the two old ruling parties, was unmoved.

Even so, Change did pretty well. As a result, KDP supporters smashed the offices of opposition groups in Erbil, the Kurdish capital and the KDP’s biggest fief. One person is said to have been killed and a dozen hurt. Independent journalists say they fear retribution by the Kurds’ security forces, which are dominated by the two old parties. “There could be assassinations,” says Ahmad Mira, an editor at Lvin magazine. One of his reporters was murdered last year, apparently for digging too deep.

Once proud of being a model for democracy in Iraq, some Kurds now worry that the “democracy gap” with the Arab Iraqis has been narrowed. Moreover, Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has already begun to play the Kurds off against each other, diminishing their influence in the central government in Baghdad. Jalal Talabani, the PUK’s founding leader, who has been Iraq’s national president, may have to cede his job next year to a Sunni Arab. Mr Talabani has been a proponent of compromise. So his departure could hurt the chances of resolving the Arab-Kurdish dispute over land and oil in the border region around Kirkuk, a city and province which the Kurds say is theirs. The old duopoly’s weakening could make it still harder for the Kurds to get closer to independence.

In any event, their mood is hardening. Sadi Pire, the PUK’s head of public relations, says, “Don’t underestimate our fighters. Saddam did that and you’ve seen the result.” While they often worry about what is going in Baghdad, many Kurds also worry that their foreign sponsors may betray them, as they have several times in the past century.

As Kurdish-Arab relations in Baghdad worsen, the Americans may be starting to lean towards the more important of the two sides: the Arabs. General Ray Odierno, the American commander in Iraq, has called the Arab-Kurdish dispute “the number one driver of instabilities” in Iraq. Mr Barzani, following his re-election, said he rejected UN proposals for sorting out the territorial row. Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, flew to Iraqi Kurdistan to talk to Mr Barzani after the poll.

In sum, a durable settlement between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds looks no closer. In the short run, the Kurdish election result may lead to a period of instability among the Kurds themselves, which is unlikely to tilt them—or the Arabs in Baghdad—towards compromise.