US: Timing of Kurdish Elections to be Decided by Local Authorities

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – State Department Deputy Press Secretary Vedant Patel explained the U.S. position on the timing of the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region, as he addressed reporters earlier this week.

Patel was clear. The timing of those elections, currently scheduled for June 10, is up to local authorities. They may decide to postpone the elections yet again—but that is up to them, perhaps in consultation with the U.S., some European states, and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI.)

Patel was pressed by two reporters on this issue on Tuesday, and he responded to the repeated questioning by doubling down on his initial position.

Regarding the elections, Patel said, “Our understanding is that President [Nechirvan] Barzani and various other authorities are actively considering next steps, and we will let that process play out further before commenting further.”

Yet the reporter pressed for additional comment, asking if the U.S. supported rescheduling the elections. He received essentially the same answer.

“We would encourage” the elections “to be scheduled and for them to be free, fair, and credible,” Patel responded. “But beyond that, our understanding is that President Barzani and various other entities are actively discussing additional next steps.”

Patel was referring to a trip that the Kurdish President had just made to Baghdad, following the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to Washington. 

Read More: Kurdistan Region President, Iraqi premier highlight latest political developments in Iraq

Patel’s statements differ from an earlier U.S. position which suggested it was a top priority for the Biden administration that the Kurdish elections be held without further delay.

That position was advanced with little regard to the concerns raised by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) about the scheduled elections. In mid-March, it announced it would boycott the vote.

The KDP did not explain why it was taking such a dramatic move, at least not publicly. But in private meetings, senior KDP figures did detail the problem to Western officials: Iranian interference.

Iran Planned to Meddle in Kurdish Elections 

The KDP is the largest political party in the Kurdistan Region. Under ordinary circumstances, it would welcome elections, because it would win. And that, initially, was its position.

The current composition of the 111 member Kurdistan parliament includes 45 seats for the KDP and 21 seats for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK.)

The PUK is the second-largest party in the Kurdistan Region, as those figures indicate. But it has been in a state of disarray since the 2017 death of its founder, Jalal  Talabani. 

There are also 11 seats in the Kurdish parliament reserved for regional minorities.

The KDP obtained reliable information that Iran was planning on rigging the vote. According to that plan, the KDP should not win more than 30 seats, while the PUK, which is much friendlier to Iran, would get at least 25 seats.

In addition, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court issued an astonishing judgment that also worked against the KDP: it ruled that the allocation of seats for minorities was unconstitutional.

As the minority parties in the Kurdistan Region support the KDP, that was another blow to the party.

It was also a very dubious judgment. Already in 1992 the Kurdish parliament and its procedures were established, following the 1991 Gulf War. 

President George H.W. Bush (the elder Bush or Bush 41) and his senior advisers had expected to overthrow Saddam. But they made a very big mistake. They believed—quite wrongly—that after such a massive defeat as Iraq suffered when its forces were driven out of Kuwait, Saddam would be overthrown in a military coup. 

Read More: The US Watches, as Saddam Crushes the Uprisings: 25th Anniversary

That was actually their expectation, when Bush called a unilateral ceasefire to the war on Feb. 28, 1991. That did not happen, of course. But Saddam’s control over the Kurdistan Region did end. And the Kurds soon began—in 1992—to develop the political institutions that would govern the region after 2003.

As Masoud Barzani, the long-time Kurdish leader and President of the Kurdistan Region until 2017, explained in 2021 on the 30th anniversary of Operation Provide Comfort, “The people of Kurdistan” protected by the no-fly zone imposed after the 1991 Gulf war, “were able to manage their own affairs, to establish institutions, hold elections, and establish a parliament and a regional government.”

Read More: Masoud Barzani hails Operation Provide Comfort, even as he warns of current dangers

Yet some two months ago, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Kurdish election system was unconstitutional. But, as explained above, that system has been in effect for 32 years!

So after so many years, how could a court rule it was unconstitutional? That was the hand of Tehran. 

Iran came to dominate the Federal Supreme Court through what Michael Knights, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has called a “judicial coup.”

In 2022, Iran succeeded, through former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in suborning the head of the court, Judge Faiq Zaidan, as Knights explained. Thus, as circumstances suggest, the court issues rulings in line with directions from Tehran.

And there was a third measure that threatened the integrity of the elections. Some 400,000 voters have been denied the right to vote, supposedly because the biometric machines cannot read their fingerprints.

US, Europe, UN Working on Fixing the Problem

International parties—Britain, France, the U.S., as well as UNAMI—have come to understand the problem, and they are working on ways to address it. 

That is the background to the new U.S. position on the timing of the Kurdish elections, as articulated by Vedant Patel.

Important diplomacy surrounds the issue. From Apr. 15 to Apr. 20, the Iraqi Prime Minister paid his first visit to Washington, and he led a large delegation.

Read More: U.S. Seeks to Broaden Ties with Iraq, as PM Sudani Makes First Visit to Washington

During that visit, U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, urged reconciliation and a settling of differences between Baghdad and Erbil.

Subsequently, the Kurdish President, Nechirvan Barzani, visited Baghdad, where he held extensive discussions, including on the subject of the Kurdish elections. 

That, almost certainly, is what Patel had in mind, when he was asked about the Kurdish elections and replied, “Our understanding is that President Barzani and various other entities are actively discussing additional next steps.”