MESOP FLASH : BARHAM SALIH OUT !? – Unlike Past, Salih Will Not Lead This Month’s PUK Poll Campaign

By RUDAW 4.4.2014 – SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Unlike previous polls, the ex-deputy leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Dr. Barham Salih will not lead his party campaigns for this month’s elections — an indicator of the group’s unresolved leadership crisis.”I am a loyal member of the PUK and believe in the principals of the PUK,” Salih declared to the media. “As a citizen of this country and as member of the PUK, it’s my right to cooperate and support the candidates and the list I believe in,” he added. Salih, a top PUK leader and former Kurdistan prime minister, resigned from the party leadership in early February after it failed to hold its January 31 convention to discuss a new leadership and reshuffle.

In protest, Salih said he was stepping down from the three-person committee, which includes Kosrat Rasul Ali and Hero Ahmed.

PUK leader Jalal Talabani has been recuperating in Germany ever since a stroke in December 2012. The charismatic PUK leader had been instrumental in keeping the PUK’s competing multiple power centers in check, historically the Achilles’ heel of the party since its establishment in 1976.In what appears to be Salih’s deliberate decision to keep out of the election campaign, he said this is an election that should be run by the candidates themselves.

PUK officials admitted Salih’s influence within the party’s popular base, and hoped that despite his absence everyone would take part in the election campaign to further PUK’s electoral list in both local and national polls. According to Rudaw sources Salih rejected a request from the other two PUK leaders, Ahmed and Rasul, to supervise the party’s election campaigns. Narmin Osman, a member of the PUK leadership, rejected reports that Salih is keeping a distance from the party’s programs and projects for the elections.  “Dr Barham is not isolated. He has expressed his support for the PUK’s programs for Iraqi legislative and Kurdistan provincial polls. He supports PUK’s projects,” Osman said.

But she admitted that Salih would not be an official face of the party during the polls, as he had been in previous elections. “He may not appear as the deputy of the PUK’s leader, but as you know he has vowed to be an active PUK member,” she noted. “I can’t say he would not be influential. He has his own influence, he has his own people to support him, and he is an advanced and real cadre of the PUK.” Talabani’s absence has led to the PUK losing strong support in its traditional stronghold in Sulaimani province. In last year’s Kurdistan parliamentary elections, it lost to the Change Movement (Gorran), led by PUK’s former deputy leader Nawshirwan Mustafa, whose party played an active opposition role in the Kurdistan parliament since 2007.

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