MESOP SOUTH KURDISTAN : PUK Not Reappointing Outgoing Ministers, as Kurds Await Cabinet

By HEVIDAR AHMED Ruda – 3.6.2014 – ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) will not reappoint ministers from the outgoing cabinet into the incoming Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a senior party official said.

“None of the previous PUK ministers in the seventh KRG cabinet will be reappointed as ministers in the eighth cabinet,” said Fareed Asasard, a member of PUK’s Leadership Council. “This decision has been implemented,” he said.More than eight months since elections for the Kurdish parliament in September, political parties in Kurdistan have yet to announce a new government. The first months-long glitch was over dividing ministries among the parties that won the largest votes. Since that was resolved, the parties have been grappling with trying to appoint ministers for the ministries they have negotiated.

Another senior member of the PUK, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the party also has decided that none of the ministerial appointments would be from its top leadership, and that lower-ranking and younger members of the leadership council are being considered.

“The PUK leadership members cannot become ministers, and the leader of the PUK bloc in the new cabinet is Qubad Talabani, who is not a member of the PUK leadership,” he said. Talabani has been appointed deputy prime minister in the KRG.

Asasard said that after the government had been formed the PUK had two decisions to make: Decide on a candidate for Iraqi president, and for vice president of the KRG. Sources in the PUK leadership said that before leaving for his trip to Europe, Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani had asked the PUK’s Kosrat Rasul Ali to remain in his post as KRG vice president. June 18 is the deadline for Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani to introduce his new cabinet to the Kurdish parliament and win its vote of confidence. But choosing the ministers has yet to be completed by most parties, which have to yet work on a government plan. Leadership members of the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have said the party has finalized only one ministerial position, to retain Ashti Hawrami as minister of natural resources.

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