FILE IMAGE: Masoud Barzani is in the center
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) opposition calls on President Masoud Barzani and his administration to resign.
The Goran (Movement for Change) political party, which is in opposition to the current government, demands President Masoud Barzani’s and Vice President Kosrat Rasul Ali’s resignations.
“The Kurdish people have lost many things they’d achieved, having paid for them in blood. The Peshmerga is falling back. Many of our friends have turned their backs on us. This is happening because of the government’s failing policy,” Shoresh Haji, Goran spokesperson, said during a press conference in Sulaymaniyah on October 22.
“Barzani has lost his credibility and should resign. The Iraqi Kurdistan government should be dissolved and a new National Liberation Government should be created”, he said.
This follows a warning issued on October 18 by a senior leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that a civil war may start in Iraqi Kurdistan. According to Mala Bakhtiyar, executive head of the PUK politburo office, the government splitting into two administrations may happen due to alleged cooperation of high-ranking members of PUK with the Iraqi military, which was revealed when documents linked to the supposed deal were made public by a Goran party member on October 16. The agreement to have the Peshmerga withdrawn from Kirkuk had supposedly been signed by Pavel Talabani, the son of the former leader of PUK.
While the Goran party is the official opposition to the current government, the real divide is within the ruling two-party coalition of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and PUK, in which both parties strive for power since the end Kurdistan civil war in the 1990s. KDP is being led by the Barzani Family, with the son of the current President of KRG, Nechirvan Barzani, acting Prime Minister and the leader of the party, while the Secretary General of PUK is the current Vice President of KRG, Kosrat Rasul Ali. Complications arise considering that the Peshmerga, the military forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, is largely divided and controlled separately by the KDP and the PUK, although both pledge allegiance to the KRG.
