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Peaceful transfer of power between KDP and PUK's strategic agreement; a framework for maturing democracy

Gulan Media January 15, 2012 Reports
Peaceful transfer of power between KDP and PUK's strategic agreement; a framework for maturing democracy

Discussing peaceful transfer of the government, a main pillar of democratic societies, is a sign that the country's democratic process is moving towards consolidation and taking roots. In this context, when we talk about the peaceful handover of the government in Kurdistan Region, particularly when it is going to happen in these days, the emphasizing is on the handover process which is a significant part of the democratic process. It is not about who comes and who leaves. Also this report emphasizes on the importance of the Strategic Alliance Agreement between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that was signed six years ago. The next handover of the government according to this agreement is to be supposed this month, which shows the utmost success of this Agreement. Despite all the impediments in front of it, the Agreement was able to implement the terms during its period and to become a foundation for the next steps in Kurdistan Region. According to many political observers and analysts, the next period of the government or the next election in Kurdistan Region will witness transformation and the democratic process will turn into a strategic agreement between the political parties in Kurdistan Region so as the handover of government in Kurdistan becomes an stable action and the political parties will accept the results of the balloting tolerantly, thereafter forming the cabinet where the opposition and ruling parties would work together to serve the nation. It is important here to discuss this strategic agreement which after eight years turned this complex and difficult process on its own rails, in which only the last two years the signs of success has become evident.
The transfer of power is for further gluing of governing structure
Returning to the beginning of signing the agreement, President Masoud Barzani and President Jalal Talabani and the leadership of both parties knew that the unification process of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) two administrations won't be an easy task. They also knew that this time they had to be more tolerant, more open and more patience with each other, and that the foundation of the agreement must be more important than those changes and challenges that both parties face. This will and this intention led to the birth of Fifth Cabinet, which provided the ground for the Sixth Cabinet, meaning that the Fifth Cabinet's main goal was to have a government whereby both parties can govern together and less aim to achieve their political parties interests. It also aimed to become a foundation to resurrect the democratic process on and to start shaping the future. Therefore, for the creation of this strong foundation, the formation of the Fifth Cabinet was a joint political decision of the politburos of KDP and PUK. The decision which had taken into consideration the balance between both parties, contained the consent and participation of the majority of leaders of both parties, and it tried to become a majority-based government where most of the parties of the Parliament and all the religions and ethnic groups were represented.
Going back to the time the agreement was signed, we saw that agreeing on the formation of the Fifth Cabinet created such conditions that a political observer instead of being optimistic got pessimistic. The Cabinet, which had 42 ministries, had a number of ministries and institutions that were still divided between Erbil and Suleymaniah, i.e., ministries of Finance, Internal and Peshmerga. In such a situation, one could hardly imagine the success of the government.
Noteworthy, the clever decision was made by both presidents Barzani and Talabani, who agreed on this candidate to lead this historical and uneasy period. The optimistic point in this process was the common candidate of both presidents, which they expected from him to take over this difficult task and be able to make political party sacrifices for the sake of success of this national process. This person was Nechirvan Barzani. But when Nechirvan Barzani took the position he had two thought-about points:
1- He knew that building a base where the KDP and PUK cadres could work together won't be an easy task. Therefore in his first statement he said in addition to the names of both parties, there are no other differences between KDP and PUK, both have one goal, and in this period they have a historical responsibility and they must bear the responsibility.
2- He knew that the success of this national process and the joint works between KDP and PUK will cause regional and international responses. He knew that in this period they [enemies] might not be able to destroy the process by military means, but they would use many other ways to distort the picture of KRG in the international arena.
He knew that in the period he is taking the premiership it is the beginning of real construction and development of Kurdistan Region. He knew that the situation of Kurdistan Region is different from all the developmental processes of other countries. It is true that Kurdistan had post-war and post-liberation country reconstruction experience. But Kurdistan was not only a post-war country or post-liberation country, it was both of them, meanwhile, it was also a neglected country which was purposefully destroyed. In 2005 when the Cabinet was formed, there was about 25 years that no strategic project had been implemented in Kurdistan Region. He knew that the construction of such a country needs a large financial and human capital, which then didn’t exist in Kurdistan. Therefore he drafted programs to form these two capitals:
1- To build human capital, Nechirvan Barzani started sending the technocratic cadres/officers to abroad country courses, albeit, fast courses. Those who had taken their courses abroad had become trainers for opening trainings and courses for other people inside Kurdistan Region. This led to the Human Capacity Development Program of the Sixth Cabinet.
2- For building financial capital and increasing the share of Kurdistan Region from the Iraqi revenue, Nechirvan Barzani started the process of exploration and developing oil and gas sector in Kurdistan. In his cabinet period, he was able to see the first exportation of oil from Kurdistan and put the Region on the global energy map. This was a really cornerstone in the Kurdish history, as never before Kurds or Kurdistan had an independent source of income. True that the income of the oil and gas exports from Kurdistan goes back to Baghdad, but the oil and gas projects are run by the KRG and the KRG exercised its constitutional authority of signing contracts with the international oil companies and asserted this as a reality.
This cabinet during his four years faced some great local and foreign challenges; particularly it faced regional military invasion threats and the distortion of the KRG image by a specified number of people around the world. Despite all of these, the Cabinet manipulated the challenges for the interests of the people of Kurdistan and the Kurdish cause. From threatening to invade Kurdistan Region in 2007, Turkey officially recognized the KRG as part of Iraq and opened its consulate in Erbil. Also, during this cabinet's life, almost 20 countries delegated diplomatic representatives to Erbil; four of them were permanent member of the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, most of INGOs, based in Jordan due to Baghdad's security situation, called for the replacement of their offices to Erbil. Locally, the KDP-PUK ties saw an unprecedented level. In the Sixth Cabinet, the number of ministries was reduced by 50% and the Prime Minister and his deputy were given their freedom to select members of their cabinet. Fifth Cabinet created also a ground for the total unification of the ministries, as such that before the 2009 elections the Finance Ministry had only one minister for its divided ministry, which in the cabinet after saw total unification.
Fifth cabinet created foundations, didn't finish its duties
Using terms of Fifth Cabinet and Sixth Cabinet is not to do any comparison, because both cabinets have been of both parties and they have played equal roles in it. The success of Fifth Cabinet has been as much as KDP the success of effort of PUK, same for Sixth Cabinet. The same rule applies for the misconducts and shortcomings. Therefore when we discuss the difficult stages of the Fifth Cabinet, we mentioned the will of PUK and KDP to pass the critical period. Honestly, one can say that wouldn’t the Fifth Cabinet succeed the cabinet after wouldn’t have formed. There were also some realistic attempts to cancel the Agreement. But despite all those things, the real success of the Fifth Cabinet can be attributed to Nechirvan Barzani personally, who, as a statesman, drafted a deep strategic vision which the KRG's duties and functions would even continue after the Fifth cabinet. He knew that in his Cabinet he won't finish all the programs he has called for and he knew that his Cabinet would just lay the foundation of the Kurdistan Region, therefore his aims were the future of democracy and good governing and not balloting box. This is a seldom and unprecedented experience in the Kurdish history.
Handover as part of the Agreement
Each country has its own experience of democracy-building process. An important point in the democratic-building process is the definition of democracy-building in a specific country within a specific period. For instance, the democratization process that started after the fall of Berlin Wall in West Europe and former Soviet countries, they all started from one point, but with the development of the process not all of them were parallel. In the first five years, only Poland, Slovenia and East Germany had a successful process. Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia started to move ahead only after 1994 when they got interested in EU membership. The Serbs were able to topple Milosevic in 2000 and the Georgians changed Shiver Nadize in 2003. There are still some former Soviet countries which haven't taken good direction into the democratization. Until the second part of the 1990s, the questions of the Western countries, particularly the U.S., was what democracy is, not what is democracy-building? Fareed Zakaria, in his book "The Future of Democracy," mentions the Bosnian elections, which convinced Richard Holbrooke that the elections won't produce democracy, but only the division of the society. Later, this book of Zakaria led to his famous paper publication "Liberal Democracy and Illiberal Democracy" in the Foreign Policy Magazine in 1997, where he claimed that democracy-building requires a civil liberal constitutions; in a country where the liberalism does not have foundation liberal democracy cannot be build. He later transformed this paper into a book, "Future of Freedom" in 2003. Zakaria, the young thinker, knew that if there were no liberal principles, neither would free and fair elections produce democracy. For example, the elections in the Palestinian Authority entity and the Iranian Islamic Republic until Mohammed Khatami, they had elections which were very unique in the region, but none of them resulted in democracy. The differences in the democracy-building process in the post-Communist countries determine the liberal democratic curve in each country.
In this context, when taking a look at the democracy building process in Kurdistan and particularly to the Alliance Agreement between PUK and KDP, one can observe that it is a means for the maturing of democracy and to get used to the peaceful handover of authority in Kurdistan Region. Many of those who oppose the Agreement describe it a reason to the failure of democracy in the Region, arguing that it is a creation of KDP and PUK to manipulate the authority and preventing its peaceful handover. The responsibility for the Region is still under KDP and PUK, particularly when we know that:
1- When the Agreement was signed, what is now the Goran Movement (an offshoot from PUK) was then still part of the PUK. The reality of Kurdistan Region tells us that even after a while -not determined- no political party will emerge that will compete KDP and PUK in winning the competition for government. When the Agreement was signed, KDP and PUK received 80% of the votes. They did a good work when they signed the agreement to run jointly the country and administer the critical period and get accustomed to peaceful handover. This has not been a reason for manipulating the government; it has been a reason to share the power.
2- In the July 2009 elections, KDP and PUK votes reduced due to the separation of Goran from PUK. But if all the votes of those three parties are added up, it would be almost the same as the 2005 elections. However, in the January 2010 Iraqi elections, the KDP got the most seats of Kurdistan, proving that it is the most popular party.
Despite all the internal and foreign challenges, the success of the Strategic Alliance Agreement between KDP and PUK, has brought the democratic process of the Region into a more advanced level, it has also provided a ground for the democratic process to be a strategic agreement between all the political parties of Kurdistan Region, including all ethnicities and religions. If for the 2014 elections, or for the provincial elections, the style of partnership changes from joint electoral lists to post-electoral alliance, it means that the democratic and tolerance culture has improved; another product of KDP and PUK Strategic Alliance Agreement. The Agreement created the awareness that ruling in the democratic society cannot be done alone; it should be based on alliances and joint works, even we separately go into the elections.
Advantages of peaceful handover to maturing democracy
In democracy, no matter how successful the government is, it must be still temporary, in the sense that it is limited for a specific amount of time. A simple reason for this continual change is the election campaigns. When we make a comparison for the political situations of the fifth and sixth cabinets of KRG, although Fifth Cabinet was more under foreign threats, the Fifth Cabinet had a more balanced political situation, and then it had not faced yet the political changes. At least, there was no formal opposition, in the sense that they had not taking a complete clear attitude on what their stance was. There was mostly a shadow opposition, particularly Islamic Union and Islamic Group which were unofficial oppositions; claiming to be opposition while they were part of the government. If the KDP and PUK succeed in the Sixth and Seventh Cabinet which will be formed after a couple of weeks from now as part of the Agreement, will be able to implement their election promises, in the next elections they can run separately but will have very close programs as such that they might again go into alliance with each other. If they don’t achieve success they will draft a new program that will avoid the past mistakes, which again will put them close together.
Future duties
The next cabinet will run the duties of the current government which is the implementation of 2009 election promises by the Kurdistani List. May be the next cabinet will also include the opposition parties, as Nechirvan Barzani is seriously making efforts for a broad-based government for a better performance of his cabinet. The next cabinet has also the duty of reviewing the distribution and implementation of the public services. These changes will also lead to the further activation of the Parliament, in which the MPs will have to deal with new mechanism on how to monitor the government tasks.


Translated by: Ari Mamshae
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