MESOP NEWS : Barzani’s KDP welcomes proposal on Kurdistan presidency with reservations

19 Sept 2015 – Rudaw – ERBIL-Hewler, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— Iraqi Kurdish political parties made headway on Thursday at the eighth round of talks over the Kurdistan region’s presidency when the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) welcomed a proposal on the mechanism of electing the president and the scope of his powers.The proposal by the four major parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Change (Gorran) Movement, the Kurdistan Islamic Union KIU and Islamic Group (Komal) suggested that the president could either be elected in a direct vote by people but with limited powers or through parliament and enjoy more authority.

The KDP, which insists that the president should be elected by the people saw the first part of the recommendation as a welcome change in the position of the parties and promised to study the proposal before the next round of talks. However, KDP’s spokesperson Jaafar Eminki said that his party still prefers a system that gives the president real powers with certain accountability to parliament. Barzani has led Kurdistan region as president from 2005 for two executive terms and his last term was extended in 2013 by ruling KDP and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) for two more years on the condition that he can no longer run as president. Iraqi Kurdistan parliament speaker, Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, says that Massoud Barzani has lost legitimacy. “Extending Barzani term as president against the laws in Kurdistan. Law No. 19 passed in 2013 … clearly says the president’s term ends on Aug. 19 and cannot be extended,” Sadiq Sadiq told Al-Monitor..

Until Thursday the PUK, Gorran, KIU and Komal had argued that a clear law must be drawn whereby the next president is elected by members of parliament.At the latest round of talks however, the parties agreed to the president being elected by people with his powers curtailed.

Eminki believes that the other parties “are imposing their will and want to change the law as they wish,”

“Our position is very clear,” Eminki said. “If they want to change the law let the people decide in a vote,”Despite some reservations, all parties agree that they are inching closer to a possible agreement through a show of goodwill.“The KDP must know that the other parties have come forward in the spirit of reaching an agreement and must not expect things to only be as it wishes,” a leader of the Islamic Union (Yekgirtu) told Rudaw. The KDP and other parties expressed optimism at a press conference after Thursday’s meeting and they are expected to debate the latest proposal next week.Political risk analyst Kirk Sowell told Reuters in August that “If it were a stable democratic system in Kurdistan, they would just vote him (Barzani) out of office. But it’s not,”