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Kurds’ Frustration With Leaders Grows in
Iraqi Kurdistan
12.2.2008
By Wrya Hama-Tahir in Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 246,
12-Feb-08)
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Attempts by pressure group to gather support for
early elections said to have been thwarted.
February 12, 2008
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--
Security forces in Kurdistan are reportedly
obstructing attempts by activists, angered by poor
services and official corruption, to pressure the
authorities to dissolve parliament and hold early
elections.
The Hatakay Movement says it hopes to gather a one
million-signature petition urging the Kurdish
leadership to bring forward the next parliamentary
poll, which is scheduled for late 2009.
However, security forces have apparently attempted
to prevent the collection of signatures in some
areas, including Chamchamal, which lies 100
kilometres south of Sulaimaniyah, and Duhok in the
north of Iraq.
In Chamchamal, police are said to have taken the
coordinators of the petition to security
headquarters in the town, confiscated their
literature and told them they couldn’t collect
signatures until they obtained permission from
officials.
"This is a dangerous position that the [ruling]
parties are taking towards democracy. The ruling
parties are afraid of people's rage and
demonstrations,” said one member of the movement,www.ekurd.net
who refused to give his
name because of security concerns.
Hatakay means “until when” - a reference to the
population’s dwindling patience over poor services
and escalating corruption in the region. It was
formed in May 2007 by a group of university
professors and human rights and civil society
activists.
Protests against the Kurdish government’s inability
to provide basic utilities - such as electricity and
water - for Iraqi Kurdistan’s four million
population have been increasingly common in the last
few years. Just last week, more than 100 students
from the University of Sulaimaniyah poured onto a
street near their dormitory calling on the
authorities to provide them electricity.
The newest of several groups that have demanded
reform and accountability from the authorities,
Hatakay is administered by representatives of more
than 20 civil society organisations. It accuses
parliament of not taking the government to task over
its failure to adequate services.
“Democracy is retreating, corruption is on the rise,
and services are declining [in Kurdistan],” said
Yousif Mohammad, a professor of political science at
the University of Sulaimaniyah and a Hatakay
Movement coordinator.
Mohammad said the group aims to advocate for reform
in the region and seek to develop civil society,
rather than try to recruit members or form a
political opposition.
“These are some issues that need serious solutions
and that is the reason why we formed this group,” he
said.
The group argues that it’s well within its rights to
gather signatures, as the organisations being
petitioning have permission to work in the region.
The security forces, however, disagree. “[People]
cannot do whatever they want,” said Ahmad Nadir,
head of the Assaish, or security forces, in
Chamchamal, told IWPR. “They don’t have a permit to
collect signatures. We have told them to bring [one]
from the governor of Sulaimaniyah and we will then
let them work.”
Although there is no law in the region that requires
parliament to dissolve if the group collects their
goal of a million signatures, Hatakay hopes the
campaign will exert pressure on Kurdish leaders and
force them to respond to public demands.
According to the constitution, parliament can be
dissolved either by the president of the region if
parliament fails three times to approve a cabinet,
or if two-thirds of parliament votes for its
dissolution.
But some politicians argue that now is a difficult
time to hold an election, citing tension between the
Kurdish leadership and the central government in
Baghdad over the future status of the oil-rich city
of Kirkuk,www.ekurd.net
as well as recent
conflict between Turkish troops and the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, PKK, in northern Iraq.
“The situation in the region makes it impossible to
dissolve parliament,” said Kareem Bahree, a
Kurdistan Democratic Party MP.
Rebeen Rasul, head of the American Society of Kurds
in Sulaimaniyah, a US-based Kurdish group that seeks
to strengthen civil society in the region, accused
parliament of being too soft on the government.
“Corrupt officials are looting the country’s wealth,
but parliament has not investigated any of them,”
said Rasul.
But Rasul believes early elections are unlikely,
“The parliament will not be dissolved even if the
movement collects three million signatures. The
Kurdish leadership has never listened to its people,
so why would it listen to the Hatakay movement?”
Nonetheless, Adnan Qurbani, 32, one of the
movement’s volunteers in Kalar, 150 km south-east of
Sulaimaniyah, said that even if they fail to bring
about a new election, their action will still send a
strong message to the authorities.
“[The movement] wants to eradicate corruption and
demand better services for the people,” he said.
“[We] can create pressure.”
Wrya Hama-Tahir is an IWPR correspondent in
Sulaimaniyah.
iwpr net
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