Northern Iraq - a Kurdish Piemonte?
By Ambassador Ingmar Karlsson
After the first Gulf War in 1990-91 both a safe haven and a non-fly-zone for the Iraqi air force were established in Northern Iraq north of the 36th parallel. The Iraqi army was forced to evacuate an area as big as Switzerland. Thus for the first time in history a Kurdish area had attained an internationally recognized autonomy.
In May 1992 elections were held in the autonomous region. The contenders were Barzani´s Kurdish Democratic Party and Talabani´s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The election campaign was completely focused on the personalities of the two party leaders and the political programs and ideologies played no role whatsoever. Barzani´s slogan was “Autonomy for Kurdistan, democracy for Iraq” whereas Talabani´s slogan was “Autonomy for the Kurds within a federative Iraq”.
Foreign observers considered the elections as free and fair. KDP received 45 % and PUK 43,6%. The 100 mandates were divided equally between the two parties while five seats were reserved for the Christian minority (four for the Assyrian Democratic Movement and one for the Christian Unity Party of Kurdistan).
A Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, was established and both parties divided the various posts among themselves equally. If one ministerial post was filled with a representative from one party the vice-minister had to come from the other and this system was applied throughout the whole administrative apparatus. This had negative affects on the efficiency of the administration which was further aggravated by the fact that the leading members of the respective parties were not prepared to hand over their power to the elected representatives. The executive power therefore came to rest with the two party leaderships that provided an environment for incompetence, arbitrariness, negligence, and corruption.
To read more, you can find the whole article as a pdf by following this link: Northern Iraq: A Kurdish Piemonte.
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