Gorran says Kurdistan independence vote 'illegal' without parl't approval

Gorran spokesperson Shorsh Haji, April 2017. Photo: Screenshot/Rudaw TV

SULAIMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The Change Movement (Gorran) has stated that it believes in the formation of an independent state of Kurdistan but that holding the referendum currently set by some Kurdish parties and the Kurdish government for September is “illegal.”

The party’s national council held its first meeting in Sulaimani after the death of its influential leader Nawshirwan Mustafa on May 19 following a long battle with illness.

Gorran or Change has said that they are continuing the path of the late leader who since his early youth until his death struggled in “bringing about the base and principles of founding and declaring the independent state of Kurdistan,” Shorsh Haji, Goran’s spokesperson said as he read a written statement, adding that such Mustafa envisioned a reformed Kurdistan.

The party refused to attend a meeting on Wednesday held by the Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP leader Massoud Barzani to discuss the issue of the independence referendum. Gorran has set the precondition of reactivating the Kurdistan parliament so the legislature can pass a law in this regard.

The crises inside Iraqi Kurdistan deepened in August 2015 following the expiration of Massoud Barzani’s term as president as he refused to step down and remains unofficially in office. According to the law, Barzani cannot run for presidency anymore and Gorran was against illegal-extending of Barzani term.

Barzani has closed the Kurdish parliament in October 2015 after parliament’s Speaker Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq was prevented by Barzani forces from entering the Kurdish capital of Erbil.

Kurdistan PM Nechirvan Barzani has removed four members of his cabinet including the Peshmerga and the Finances from the Change Movement and replaced them with KDP politicians.

“The issue of referendum should be the last phase of a comprehensive plan before the declaration of the independent state of Kurdistan,” Haji continued, “but the process, that the Kurdistan Democratic Party and those who play along [with] its tune has begun, is a party-based and illegal process.”

Nechirvan Barzani, and Deputy PM Qubad Talabani convened a meeting in Erbil last week with some political parties, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) with whom Gorran has had an alliance agreement with since last year, and the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), who shared with Gorran a parliamentary opposition to the ruling KDP-PUK government from 2009 until 2013.

On June 7, Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s political parties, not including the Change Movement (Gorran) and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) came to an agreement to hold the referendum on the region’s independence this year on September 25.

The Gorran statement is as much directed against the PUK and the KIU as it is against the KDP. It would have wanted the two parties to also set a precondition for a reactivated parliament prior to any dates being set for the referendum.

Gorran, the second-largest party with 25 seats in the Kurdish parliament, and the Islamic League (Komal) with six seats, both members of the coalition government headed by the KDP, boycotted the meeting.

“Neither this issue, nor any other factor should be used as justification to postpone or cancel conducting the general elections on time,” Gorran’s statement added.

Commenting on a recent contract signed between Erbil and the Russian giant oil firm Rosneft, the party said that the issue of referendum should not be used to pass this and other “non-transparent” contracts made in the oil sector that it claimed has left the Region with a “big debt.”

The debt, the statement said, has driven the lives of people to a “dangerous level.”

Lack of control mechanisms and closed parliament in Iraqi Kurdistan makes it a paradise for illegal financial activities by the Kurdish ruling leaders.

Gorran also said that it is their priority to improve the living conditions of the people of Kurdistan in light of the ongoing financial crisis caused primarily by a drop in oil prices for the oil-dependent Region, the budget cut by the central government in Baghdad since early 2014, and the war against the ISIS group and the subsequent influx of refugees who sought refuge in the relative safety of the Kurdish Region.

The Kurdish opposition accuses Barzani and his KDP of using the independence issue as means to stay in power and monopoly it.

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