Iraq's Kurdistan Region Democracy Deficit

Kurdistan's Democracy Deficit

Reformers in Iraq's Kurdish region hope for Change in the upcoming election.
by Jerry Weinberger 07/22/2009 12:00:00 AM

On July 25th, the Kurdish region of Iraq is scheduled to have its first major election since 2005. The election is pivotal, and vital to U.S. interests, because it will determine whether Kurdistan takes a first step toward genuine democracy or, through another stolen election, lurches toward presidential dictatorship.

Democracy and stability are progressing in the rest of Iraq. The January 2009 provincial elections were competitive and fair and conducted under rules that made individual candidates accountable to voters. Religious political blocs are splintering. The parliament wrangles about oil because the competing parties and the people know what resources and funds are at stake. Public pressure has forced a crackdown on ministerial corruption and the crooks are going to jail. Messy business--but that's democracy, and democracy in a whole Iraq is the lynchpin of stability in the region, and thus the proper goal of U.S. policy.

Things don't look so good in Kurdistan, where if the crooks went to jail there'd be no one left to run the government, and the public hasn't a clue about oil contracts or anything else that goes on in the black boxes of government. The Kurdistan esteemed in the west as a beacon of democracy and good government is a myth. I'll bet the U.S State Department believes the multi-storied building frames that dot the city of Sulaimani are signs of economic development. They're not.
They're giant, never-to-be finished piles of concrete used to funnel public funds into the private pockets of the ruling party.

The democratic deficit in Kurdistan stems from the collusion of the two corrupt political parties that have governed the region since the end of a bitter civil war in 1998: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the north, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the south. The parties are organized on the Soviet model, each with a powerful politburo calling the shots from the top. The KDP, headed by Massoud Barzani, is more rigid and conservative and nepotistic and enjoys the support of powerful landowners and tribal leaders. The PUK, headed by Jalal Talabani, was in its origins a coalition of progressive and socialist groups and as a result is still today a looser political structure than the KDP.

The parties exert control through their vast and coercive networks of patronage that descend from the two politburos through the government, the economy, the institutions of civil society, and to almost every family in Kurdistan (since almost one in four Kurds is employed by the government).

In the 2005 election for the Kurdish Regional Government, the two parties joined, along with some smaller parties, into a single electoral list. The purpose was to stifle opposition and to divide the political spoils prior to the election, and then use their joint patronage to guarantee the result. Even though there was no serious opposition, there were reports of widespread voting fraud.

Since that election, and against long and dangerous odds, a serious opposition developed within the looser PUK, led by the first Deputy Secretary General and co-founder of the PUK, Nawshirwan Mustafa, and other courageous and honest former members of the politburo desirous of real democracy and sickened by the monumental corruption in both parties. (One can tell they're honest just from the shabby clothes they wear and the tiny, book-strewn houses in which they live.) In March of this year, they formed a rival PUK election list called "Change."

Change admires classical Western liberalism and the American Founding and advocates fiscal transparency in party, government, and business; a professional civil service; election-law reform; and a vast contraction of the public sector. In its platform, Change proposes to "support the rule of law and enhance the principle of separation of the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary authorities while consolidating the independence of the judiciary." In today's Kurdistan, that's a constitutional revolution for the better.

The opposition stands boldly against the grotesque corruption: when a Change leader disclosed to the press that the Kurdish Government gives the two parties each $35 million per month for "expenses," the Finance Minister could but sputter that he "was not permitted to discuss the exact amount given to the parties."

But most important, Change respects the supreme authorities of the federal government and wants comity with Baghdad and resolution of Kirkuk according to the terms of the federal constitution, and, while desiring strong local government, wants no truck with the bellicose nationalism and go-it-alone policy pursued by the ruling parties, especially the KDP.

Change is especially popular in the more liberal south, but it expects to surprise in the more conservative and traditional north. That's why the ruling parties have again combined for the election. With so much at stake, Change fears that the unified party Goliath will again rig the election.

Already in the south, Change endures the vast coercive power of the PUK patronage machine. Hundreds of people, many of them policemen and security guards and low-level officials, have been fired from their jobs for siding with Change. The two parties control the mass media and have threatened to cut salaries of staffers of an independent radio station, established by the United States, who dare to stray from the prescribed line.

The parties also control the means of physical coercion: the militias, the police, and the secret service. Perhaps most important, Change cannot trust the Independent High Election Commission of Iraq. Its Director General in Baghdad is a Barzani loyalist. The Commission's record so far in Kurdistan: supervision of the suspect 2005 election and a pathetic fine of $2,500 just levied against the united parties for a raft of campaign violations.

A stolen election will be bad enough: but not nearly as bad as the Presidential putsch Massoud Barzani is hatching to squash the first glimmer of democracy in Kurdistan.

After the legally mandated June 1 session-end of the Kurdish National Assembly, Barzani forced an extension of its deliberations. He then rammed through a drastic revision of the Kurdish Constitution that creates a presidential system with an impotent parliament and vast and unchecked power at the top. The new constitution also extends his possible terms for another eight years.

Barzani is doing all he can to rush a referendum on the constitution: limiting the time for public debate on the document will of course improve its chances of electoral success. If that happens and the banana-republic constitution is "voted in," the Kurds will lose such liberties as they have to Massoud Barzani. Barzanistan will not be good for the rest of Iraq. The intemperate president thrives on tension with Baghdad, and he'll be alone at the wheel of state in the delicate negotiations necessary to settle the incendiary issues of Kirkuk, the disputed territories, and the extent of Kurdish independence: all matters that endanger the integrity of Iraq.

If the Kurds want to submit to Massoud Barzani, there is nothing the U.S. can or should do about it. Change has called for international and U.S. monitoring of the parliamentary election. Let's hope it materializes. Our interest in a whole and democratic Iraq, and the U.S. blood and treasure invested in that cause, dictate a full-throttle effort to ensure that the Kurdish opposition has a fair opportunity to head off disaster.

Jerry Weinberger is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University and an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. He just returned from four months of consulting for the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/759kgeub.asp?pg=1?ZoomFont=YES

No freedom of the Press in Talabani's Kurdistan

Iraqi president files lawsuit against Kurdish newspaper
-->BBC Monitoring

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has filed a lawsuit against Hawlati newspaper for publishing an article by an American writer, the website of independent twice-weekly Hawlati reported on 18 January.

Note: Please see next post for Michael Rubin's article

The Political Bureau spokesman of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mala Bakhtiyar, said: "The whole report is fabricated and untrue and it defames the personality of Mam [honorific] Jalal [Talabani], who is the president of Iraq and the PUK secretary general. Hawlati newspaper published the report intact and ran it as the main headline [of its front page] without verifying it."

Bakhtiyar added: "Hawlati should have consulted us to avoid publishing an untrue report. Hawlati newspaper operates in Kurdistan within the legal framework. They should not have published the report."

Hawlati published a translation of Michael Rubin's article "Is Iraqi Kurdistan a good ally?" on 13 January. Rubin's article was posted on the website of the US think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

The report said the article "dealt with the corruption of Kurdish leadership".

Source: Hawlati website, Sulaymaniyah, in Sorani Kurdish 18 Jan 08

Corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan

Inflation adds to problems of ordinary Kurds

By Kate Clark

Reporter, Crossing Continents

Flying into the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Irbil and its glitteringly new international airport, it is difficult to believe you are entering Iraq.
"Welcome to Kurdistan," the signs say. There are no Iraqi flags, only Kurdish flags, flying throughout this self-governing region.

The safety and apparent prosperity also makes Kurdistan feel a long way from the rest of Iraq.
Irbil looks like a boom town. Cranes and new multi-storey buildings litter the skyline.
There are shopping malls, luxurious gated communities, conference centres and grandiose headquarters for the factions who once fought Saddam and now rule Kurdistan - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The Regional Government is selling Kurdistan as flourishing, progressive and democratic.

"Bite of the pie"

But beneath the façade, ordinary Kurds are struggling to survive, while state money gets siphoned off into private pockets.
The state also punishes those who stand out of line. An unpublished report by the United Nations, which we were given access to, said thousands of people are detained each month in Kurdistan, mostly for political crimes.
Most are held without trial or access to lawyers.
Businessmen were generally too frightened to speak openly about the corruption they encountered. But Saman Jaff, a former peshmerga - a guerrilla who fought the Saddam regime from the mountains - did agree to an interview.

Corruption is like a virus. It is killing Kurdistan. Saman Jaff Businessman

"If you are a relative of one of the political leaders," he said, "you may be given a government job with a budget or a contract worth, for example $2m or $3m to rebuild a road."
He said it was immaterial whether the relative could actually build a road. The contract would be sold on, repeatedly, until it reached a real construction company. By that time, there might only be half of the money left.

"Corruption is like a virus," he said. "It is killing Kurdistan."
A whistleblower within the Ministry of Planning confirmed that public works were not tendered in a transparent, bidding process.
"Ministers or officials try to give contracts to their own company or their friends' companies," said a senior civil servant, "to gain a bite of the pie."

Beneath the façade

Meanwhile, ordinary Kurds are struggling to get by. People described rampant inflation, high unemployment and erratic water and electricity supplies.
In Sulaimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan's second city, people said they got running water for four hours every three days and electricity for three-to-four hours a day.
Contaminated water supplies have led to cholera outbreaks.
"Too many times, we have asked the government to help us,"said one woman who had lost her father-in-law and a baby to cholera said. "But it is in vain. They promise and do nothing."
She described the fear of living through an outbreak last September, knowing her water supply was contaminated, but not having the electricity to boil the water.
"When I think of the budget and the millions and see my situation," she said, "I feel like I am dead."

They see how ordinary people are living. They have no shame Ari Harsin Journalist with Awene newspaper

Kurdistan's budget is large - more than $6bn last year - the region's share of Iraq's oil revenues. But there is a growing gap between ordinary Kurds and the political elite.
"I see some of the officials who, 20 years ago, were with us in the mountains," said Ari Harsin, another former peshmerga, who is now the Irbil bureau editor of the independent Awene newspaper.
"They used to be purists, partisans. Now they are driving land cruisers with dark windows and a lot of body guards. They see how ordinary people are living. They have no shame."

One of the up-and-coming Kurdish politicians, Qubad Talabani, accepts there are problems with corruption and that reform is needed. But he believes Iraqi Kurdistan is still, "a glimmer of hope in a very radical Middle East".
He said Kurdish politics were generally secular and the economy was moving towards a free market, "We are not a democracy, but we are democratising."

Nepotism

But Qubad also seems to represent some of the problems in Kurdistan.

I do not think we should be inhibited because we are related to a leader, but it is important for there to be an inclusive environment Qubad Talabani Iraqi Kurd Politician
He is certainly smart and speaks eloquently, but he is only 30 years old and has been the Kurdish representative in Washington since he was 22.

His father is the President of Iraq and the leader of one of the two main Kurdish parties, the PUK. His brother is the head of one of the security services.
The other major family, the Barzanis, leaders of the KDP faction, fill the posts of Kurdish president, prime minister and head of the other main security service.
"Obviously I can see how it could be perceived as nepotism," said Qubad.
But he said both families had sacrificed much during the struggle.
"I do not think we should be inhibited because we are related to a leader, but it is important for there to be an inclusive environment."

All the interviewees stressed that it was impossible to compare problems in today's Kurdistan with the Saddam era, when villages were razed and tens of thousands of people were gassed and massacred.
Even so, for many, there is a fear that the dream of a free and democratic Kurdistan is slipping away.
Sometimes, says the journalist, Ari Harsin, Kurdistan seems like a mafia state.
"There is no transparency. They are dividing the budget of the Kurdish Regional Government between the PUK and the KDP, 52% for the KDP. 48% for the PUK. It is a very strange model of democracy."

Crossing Continents on BBC Radio 4 reports from Kurdistan on Thursday, January 10 at 1100 GMT.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7178820.stm

US expert accuses Barzani of playing terror card, corruption, tyranny

U.S. should cut aid to Kurds until northern Iraq ceases to be PKK safe haven, Rubin says

A leading United States specialist on Iraq has accused Iraqi Kurdish leaders of playing the terror card against Turkey, of widespread corruption and of ruling their area with an iron fist, suggesting that such leaders would not be good allies to the U.S.


"[Massoud] Barzani's antagonism to Turkey undercuts any possibility of a U.S. alliance. Many Kurdish officials look at U.S.-Turkish relations as a zero-sum game: either Washington pursues friendship with (the Iraqi Kurdish capital of) Arbil or allies itself with Ankara," said Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank here.

His remarks came in an article to be published by AEI today, a copy of which was sent to the Turkish Daily News over the weekend. "Too often, Kurdish authorities tell visiting American officials that Iraqi Kurdistan would be a much better ally than Turkey," he said. "They understand neither the breadth of the U.S.-Turkish relationship nor how poorly received are Kurdish demands that Washington filter its alliances through the interests of any other state."

He said Barzani, leader of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, had adopted the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a lever against Turkey. "[Barzani] tells U.S. diplomats that the PKK threat would disappear if only Ankara offered greater concessions in terms of amnesty, broadcasting, and constitutional reforms, while at the same time encouraging PKK leaders to continue their attacks and, indeed, facilitating their terrorism," Rubin said.

He said that Turkish officials suspected Barzani's son of selling weapons to the PKK. "It is this knowledge that has forced Ankara to take such a hard line against Kurdistan and has convinced U.S. officials to support Ankara, even as Turkish warplanes bomb Iraqi Kurdish targets," Rubin added.

Fake Democrats: In the wake of escalating PKK attacks on Turkish targets in September and October, Ankara warned that it could send its army to neighboring northern Iraq, under Iraqi Kurdish control, to fight the terrorists there. To avoid a unilateral Turkish incursion into Iraqi territory, U.S. President George W. Bush then agreed to provide the Turkish military with actionable intelligence for limited operations against PKK targets.

In recent weeks, Turkish fighter aircraft have repeatedly hit terrorist targets inside northern Iraq, including the PKK's headquarters on the Kandil mountain region, some 100 kilometers south of the Turkish border. In striking PKK targets, the Turkish military is believed to have acted on U.S. intelligence.

Neither Barzani nor Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, another major Kurdish leader, are democrats, Rubin added. After the 2003 Iraq war, "many Iraqi Kurds expected that their region would liberalize and democratize. Rather than reform, however, regional politics have ossified. Barzani retains dictatorial control over the Duhok and [Arbil] governorates, and Talabani likewise dominates Sulaymaniyah," he said. "Barzani appointed his nephew as prime minister and assigned his 35-year-old son to run the local intelligence service. Other relatives control the regional telephone company, newspapers, and media," he said.

Rubin also accused both Iraqi Kurdish leaders of corruption. "While in office, both Barzani and Talabani have amassed fortunes in excess of $2 billion and $400 million, respectively," he said.'U.S. should re-evaluate ties' Rubin compared the typical Turkish and Kurdish approach toward American officials. "Local Kurdish culture also facilitated a relationship with the United States. Both Turkish diplomats and military officers often stand on ceremony, and rigid adherence to protocol undercuts rather than facilitates their relations. Few American diplomats like their Turkish interlocutors," he said. "The Iraqi Kurds, in contrast, shower visiting U.S. officials with hospitality, arranging lavish banquets and, in a few cases, even facilitating liaisons with women," Rubin added.

He said that also enhancing Kurdish influence in Washington was the Kurds' hiring of former U.S. military and political officials to represent them. Rubin said that in light of Barzani's critical flaws, the U.S. should reassess its relationship with the Kurds. "There should be no aid and no diplomatic legitimacy so long as Iraqi Kurdistan remains a PKK safe haven, sells U.S. security to the highest bidder, and leaves democratic reform stagnant," he said.

Rubin worked at the Pentagon from 2002 to 2004 as staff assistant for Iraq and Iran at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.

Source: TDN, January 7, 2008

http://www.turkses.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4708&Itemid=36