CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Page 29

MUSHEGH GHAHRIYAN
Iraqi Kurdistan.
The fourth elections of parliament in Iraqi Kurdistan took place on
September 21, 2013. For the first time a third party was able to break
the hegemony of KDP-PUK tandem – two strongest Iraqi Kurdish
parties for decades. The Gorran party led by former KDP member
Nawshirwan Mustafa took 24 of 111 seats in the parliament and
became the main opposition party in the Kurdistan Region. The KDP
won 38 seats and the PUK only 18. For the first time since 1992, the
KDP and the PUK, which together had formed the Kurdistan Alliance,
ran on separate electoral lists. The PUK was affectedby the problems
of leadership since its founder and leader, former Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, suffered a stroke in December 2012. The PUK lost a big part
of its electorate to the Gorran movement, whose founders previously
had broken from the PUK. The representative of the Gorran Yousif
Mohammed Sadiq was elected as the parliament speaker. The new
elected parliament functioned until October 2015, when the issue of
presidential elections evolved into violent actions.
The Kurdistan Parliament established the Kurdistan Region
Presidency (KRP) in 2005.The President of the Kurdistan Region has
the highest executive authority, and is elected by the people of the
Kurdistan Region every four years. Masoud Barzani was elected as
the Kurdistan Region’s first president on 31 January 2005 by the
Kurdistan Parliament, and re-elected in July 2009 1 .
President Masoud Barzani’s second term came to end in 2013. The
KDP and PUK alliance in the parliament extended Barzani’s
presidential term for two more years without holding elections. The
Parliament of Iraqi Kurdistanvoted for the extension of Barzani’s term
to two years, stating: “the current president will stay in office for two
more years. The current president will not be allowed to nominate
himself after his term comes to an end. Parliament ratified the bill, and
later President Barzani approved the amendment 2 .
1
Official website of Department of Foreign Relations Kurdistan Regional
Government, http://www.dfr.gov.krd/p/p.aspx?p=88&l=12&s=030400&r=403
2
Shamulddin S., Barzani vs. Parliament; The Crisis of Legitimacy in Kurdistan,
29.08.2015,
https://kurdishpolicy.org/2015/08/29/barzani-vs-parliament-the-
crisis-of-legitimacy-in-kurdistan/
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