Challenges in Kurdish Unity: KDP and PUK Struggle for Power Balance

No single party has emerged as the clear winner of Iraq's parliamentary elections, creating an unstable political environment. No coalition was able to secure the required fifty seats. Negotiators tasked with forming the government under the Shiite Coordination Framework will therefore likely face a wide range of claims from comparatively small and comparably sized parties, including some who have previously had substantially greater clout.

This is especially true for the Kurdish parties, who have acted as kingmakers in previous election rounds. For instance, their support of Iraq's current constitution two decades ago enabled it to overcome Sunni disagreements. To gain more political clout, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, ran together in 2010. Four years later, Nouri Al-Maliki was overthrown as prime minister thanks to an agreement between Haidar Al-Abadi and the Kurds. This time, none of those scenarios exist; in fact, since the Ba'ath Party's government ended in 2003, the Kurdish parties have seldom ever been weaker in comparison to Baghdad.

During Sudani's premiership, ties between Baghdad and Erbil have generally been tense. Federal court rulings on the region's oil and gas law, budgetary issues, disagreements over energy exports, and intra-Kurdish dysfunction have all significantly reduced Kurdish power. Relations could keep getting worse if the next government decides to follow that course.

However, there is still hope for the Kurds in Iraq. The KDP and the PUK will play a significant role in any discussions due to the relative balance between the major parties in the federal Council of Representatives (parliament). However, the Kurds will probably not be able to fulfill their customary position as king makers in this election cycle because of their electoral performance, incapacity to put up a cohesive front, complex demands for government formation, and competition from ambitious forces in other ethno-sectarian coalitions.

No single party has emerged as the clear winner of Iraq's parliamentary elections, creating an unstable political environment. No coalition was able to secure the required fifty seats. Negotiators tasked with forming the government under the Shiite Coordination Framework will therefore likely face a wide range of claims from comparatively small and comparably sized parties, including some who have previously had substantially greater clout.

This is especially true for the Kurdish parties, who have acted as kingmakers in previous election rounds. For instance, their support of Iraq's current constitution two decades ago enabled it to overcome Sunni disagreements. To gain more political clout, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, ran together in 2010. Four years later, Nouri Al-Maliki was overthrown as prime minister thanks to an agreement between Haidar Al-Abadi and the Kurds. This time, none of those scenarios exist; in fact, since the Ba'ath Party's government ended in 2003, the Kurdish parties have seldom ever been weaker in comparison to Baghdad.

Election Outcomes: Kurdish Parties Win 17.6% of Legislative Seats

An estimated 58 seats were won by the six Kurdish parties who emerged victorious in the elections on November 11. Hence, they will comprise 17.6% of the upcoming 329-seat legislature.

With 27 seats, the KDP proved most victories. However, compared to the 31 seats the party received in the aftermath of the previous 2021 elections, there is a drop. It gained fewer seats in the "disputed areas," which accounts for much of this disparity. Nonetheless, the KDP was the second-largest candidate in Iraq in terms of ballots after achieving its campaign target of receiving over 1 million votes. The Reconstruction and Development Coalition, a coalition of seven parties led by caretaker Prime Minister Muhammad Shia' Al-Sudani, received over 1.3 million votes.

Kurdish social media has been ablaze with examples of how easier it appears to be for Shiite parties to win huge numbers of seats with less votes; KDP officials and their followers are obviously dissatisfied about the fact that votes do not match parliamentary seats. Party leader Masoud Barzani declared the electoral law to be “unjust and unfair” even before, with the most recent elections. In the future, the KDP is probably going to use its large number of votes as justification for being appointed to important federal cabinet posts. Since other parties ran as coalitions, the party is actually already claiming to be the biggest single party.

Meanwhile, the PUK received an additional seat in the crucial Kirkuk governorate, increasing its total number of seats to 18. The PUK's apparent triumph is deceptive because it garnered only half as many votes overall as its main rival, even though it narrowed the gap with the KDP on this criterion alone.

Together, the four opposition political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan won 13 seats, one fewer than they did in the 2021 elections. They are unlikely to participate in the formation of the cabinet and will probably have minimal political clout in Baghdad.

Kurdish Political Landscape: Challenges in Upcoming Government Formation

In terms of seats in the next parliament, the relatively mediocre performance of parties headquartered in the Kurdistan region indicates that they will be unable to issue deal-breaking demands during negotiations to create the new administration. However, the KDP in particular will participate in discussions and be able to act both in its own self-interest and for the greater good of the Kurdistan region due to the similar weakness of other key groups.

The Middle East Peace and Security Forum (MEPS) is an annual event held at the American University of Kurdistan, which, according to several experts, maintains close ties with Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, the son of the KDP leader. The forum has already begun, and Acting Prime Minister Sudani has arrived in Duhok to participate.

Sudani will most likely require Kurdish backing to win a second term. That will not be an easy feat, however, as one of the main demands will be to settle the current dispute over Baghdad's delay to pay public sector salaries in the Kurdistan region. "Implementing the constitution is the central basis for negotiations on forming the next Iraqi government," Barzani stated during a meeting with the British ambassador to Iraq on November 16.

Nonetheless, a number of specific factors indicate that Kurdish involvement in the establishment of the new government will not be essential. The KDP and PUK will not be as successful as they were in previous elections due to internal divisions and opposition from other ethno-sectarian coalitions.

Challenges in Kurdish Unity: KDP and PUK Struggle for Power Balance

The KDP and PUK's relationship is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, and it is unlikely that they will be able to cooperate in order to increase Kurdish power in Baghdad. Equal power sharing, referred to locally as "50-50," was the basis for the operations of both parties throughout the 2000s. However, in recent years, the balance of power has become more uneven, with the KDP rising to prominence and the PUK mired in division.

Kurdistan Region Premier Barzani said on November 19, "You should respect that the formation of the government has to be a reflection of the victory of each group," addressing the PUK's purported role in the impasse over the creation of a new regional government following the Kurdistan Parliament elections last year. He insisted that the KDP has been "very respectful and generous" in intra-Kurdish negotiations. According to some observers, the younger generation of Kurdish leaders do not seem to have the same practical instincts as their forebears that made previous deals possible, nor do they get along well with one another.

In the present scenario, Iraqi Kurdistan's dominant parties must negotiate two different government formation processes. For over a year, the KDP and PUK have been unable to create a new regional government, and the former party has accused that the latter of purposefully postponing this until after the federal legislative elections. In other words, any agreement on federal positions will probably be a component of a larger agreement on regional government, and vice versa.

According to the post-2003 ethno-sectarian political apportionment system, the PUK has frequently held the Iraqi presidency in Baghdad. Both parties have taken on significant ministries, and the KDP has had key parliamentary roles. The PUK oversees the deputy prime minister and speaker of the parliament of Iraqi Kurdistan, while the KDP is in charge of the semi-autonomous region's presidency, prime ministry, and most cabinet posts.

The PUK has attempted to renegotiate this agreement over the past year and assume control of important security responsibilities, such as the interior ministry of the Kurdistan region. Such a shift has been categorically rejected by the KDP. Masrour Barzani cautioned at the MEPS Forum that the circumstances surrounding the establishment of a government with the PUK "have changed now after the recent Iraqi parliamentary elections." Both sides are hungry for change for their own self-interest, but tinkering with this separation of perspectives could turn nasty.

The timeline of the entire federal government formation process may be significantly impacted by how this dynamic is managed. The selection of a prime minister is conditional upon the appointment of an Iraqi president. Kurdish disputes over the president caused a months-long delay following the 2021 Iraqi parliamentary elections, undermining the impetus for the formation of a Sadrist-Sunni-KDP majoritarian government and providing time for the Shiite Coordination Framework to regain traction. A repetition of that sort of dynamic would be tough to manage.

Furthermore, if the events of 2021–2022 are repeated, the Sunni bloc may have a chance to try to overthrow Iraq's ethno-sectarian distribution system and secure the president. Although the president is mostly a symbolic office inside Iraq, it has more significance outside and has been effectively utilized by PUK leaders like senior member Barham Salih and late party leader Jalal Talabani to increase sympathy for Iraq's Kurds. Former parliament speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi, a Sunni politician, might follow suit, particularly considering Iraq's ties to the Gulf and other Arab nations. That would be useful, but it would damage Kurdish prestige.

During Sudani's premiership, ties between Baghdad and Erbil have generally been tense. Federal court rulings on the region's oil and gas law, budgetary issues, disagreements over energy exports, and intra-Kurdish dysfunction have all significantly reduced Kurdish power. Relations could keep getting worse if the next government decides to follow that course.

However, there is still hope for the Kurds in Iraq. The KDP and the PUK will play a significant role in any discussions due to the relative balance between the major parties in the federal Council of Representatives (parliament). However, the Kurds will probably not be able to fulfill their customary position as king makers in this election cycle because of their electoral performance, incapacity to put up a cohesive front, complex demands for government formation, and competition from ambitious forces in other ethno-sectarian coalitions.