MESOP FOCUS : Gorran’s popularity decreases after deal with KDP

15.5.2014 – Mesop – The popularity of Gorran (Change Movement), Kurdistan Region’s former opposition and a new ruling movement in the new government of the region, has decreased after the movement sealed an agreement with ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to attend in the new government on the autonomous self-ruling region.

Only in Erbil the votes of the movement saw a 300000-vote decrease compared to the former parliament election in the region at the end of March a month after Iraq parliament polls on April 30.

A member of the movement’s patriotic council and Gorran’s Erbil office Chief Kawa Mufti told Hawlati that the movement’s supporters are not happy with the agreement with the KDP. He further said the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan used the deal as propaganda against Gorran and called the movement a follower of the KDP, a motto “Gorran used to call PUK formerly.” A pro-Gorran political activist Safin Malla Qare related the decrease to the movement’s weak election propaganda and lack of clarification over the deal. The votes of the movement decreased in Kirkuk province too, but its votes increased Sulaymaniya, its stronghold, and Dohuk instead.