Iraqi Kurds voted yesterday in elections expected to keep President Masoud Barzani in power in Kurdistan, but unlikely to erase voter concern about corruption or end a bitter feud with Baghdad over land and oil.
Polls opened at 8am in the largely autonomous northern region, and closed at 6pm, after which ballots were to be flown to Baghdad for tallying. The official count is expected to take two to three days with no challenges.
The people of the relatively peaceful enclave will elect a president directly this time, unlike 2005 polls that selected a parliament alone, and former guerrilla leader Barzani looks certain to defeat his five competitors.
Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s Democratic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the region’s most powerful parties, will run for seats on a joint list against 23 alliances of smaller parties.
As the poll drew near, Barzani and other Kurdish leaders churned out fiery rhetoric about claims to territories they dispute with Baghdad’s Arab-led government.
Diplomats see the row over oil-producing Kirkuk and other disputed areas as a major threat to Iraq’s long-term stability as sectarian violence fades, but many Kurds support Barzani’s hardline approach against Baghdad, from where Saddam Hussein launched deadly attacks against Kurds in the 1980s.
“Kirkuk is the most important thing to Kurds,” said Yunis Mohammed Qader, 39, outside the sweltering oven of his pizza takeaway. “Only Barzani and the KDP-PUK can bring it back.”
The Kurd-Arab row has held up critical energy legislation in the national parliament and overshadows government efforts to secure foreign investment in the important oil sector.
Speaking to reporters after voting, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, the president’s nephew, signaled that the Kurd leader might take a different tack after the elections.
“We hope after the election we will be able to sit down at the negotiating table with Baghdad and resolve the issue of Kirkuk ... We Kurds are willing to show flexibility,” he said.
Although Kurds have long dreamed of their own state and such rallying cries used to define Kurdish politics, many Kurds now worry more about problems closer to home, like graft.
Critics of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) accuse it of widespread official corruption, abuses by security forces, media intimidation and an atmosphere that stifles dissent.
“They feed on our money. They point to buildings and say it’s development, but do you think most Kurds can go in that hotel,” bar worker Haider Abdul asked of Kurdish leaders, pointing at a fancy Arbil hotel in the distance.
An alliance hoping to capitalize on disenchantment is the Change list, run by independent candidate Noshwan Mustafa.
While the polls are not expected to topple the region’s two-party hegemony, Change officials hope for up to a third of the 111 seats in the Kurdish parliament.
“Our priority is to clean up the system and give it back to the people,” said Safin Malaqara, head of the Change campaign in Arbil. “The ruling parties haven’t put any oversight in place on the region’s budget. God knows where all that money goes.”
Sensitive to these criticisms, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who heads the campaign of the joint KDP-PUK list, has made transparency and accountability a campaign priority.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS