SULAIMANIYAH: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who founded a political party to counter hegemony and graft among Kurdish leaders, could face similar accusations from his innermost circle of power next month.
Demands for reform of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan are likely to dominate a rare congress of its members starting on June 1, only the third such PUK meeting since it was founded by Talabani in 1975.
The party is under pressure after a battle in the autonomous northern region for seats in central government saw the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of regional president Massud Barzani come out on top.
The PUK is also engaged in a campaign to stop more of its members joining a breakaway, rival party which attracted significant support, particularly from young voters, in recent elections, further draining Talabani’s political base.
At the heart of the Iraqi president’s troubles is popular anger over what opponents say is the PUK’s undemocratic and opaque processes.
"I think there will be changes made, particularly in terms of promoting young people and women into the party leadership," Aref Qurbani, a senior PUK official, told AFP.
"We are now faced with important political and ideological developments, and the purpose of the congress is to establish a new set of policies based on the new reality."
The fact that the congress, which will last several days, is only the third in 35 years indicates how much is at stake — the previous two were immediately after the PUK’s founding and then following the US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The "new reality" Qurbani referred to equates to the biggest threat to face the PUK since its formation — a major chunk of its supporters has become disenchanted with the party over alleged corruption and nepotism, and many have instead allied themselves with a new movement, Goran ("Change" in Kurdish).
Goran, led by Nusherwan Mustafa, was formed last year by former PUK members who were tired of their calls for reform falling on deaf ears.
The new party’s power base is Iraqi Kurdistan’s second city of Sulaimaniyah, also where the PUK is based, and in barely more than a year has already made a significant dent in the KDP and PUK’s two-party stranglehold over the region.
"All the world knows that Goran is a serious political force in the region," Mustafa Sayid Qader, a member of Goran’s political bureau, said confidently.
Goran’s rise in Sulaimaniyah has eroded the PUK vis-à-vis the KDP, headed by Talabani’s adversary-turned-ally Barzani, with the PUK now clearly the junior partner in the joint Kurdish Alliance slate between the two blocs.
The nationwide parliamentary elections in March hammered that point home — of the 43 seats won by the joint slate, 29 were won by KDP candidates, while 13 were from the PUK, with one independent. Goran took eight seats on its own.
Enemies for more than 20 years, Talabani and Barzani fought a bloody war from 1994 to 1998 for control of smuggling routes running through Kurdistan that provided valuable tariff revenue while Saddam was still in power.
Talabani appeared to have the upper hand in that conflict when power-sharing deals were struck between the two.
Today, however, it is Barzani who is seen as dominant — he has stayed at home in his Arbil powerbase, preferring instead to send Talabani to Baghdad to be Iraq’s president.
"The PUK is in a difficult situation, and without radical reform of its policies and its organisation it will be reduced to a single family," Kurdish journalist Sardar Mohammed said of the Talabani family, which has a stranglehold on the PUK’s levers of power.
According to Goran’s Qader, allegations of corruption alone do not explain the PUK’s nosedive in popularity.
"They have made promises for years, particularly over Kirkuk and the lack of basic services for ordinary people," he said. "All the while, there has been money in the state coffers."
The oil-rich province of Kirkuk is at the centre of a disputed tract of land along Kurdistan’s border with the rest of Iraq. While Kurdish leaders want it incorporated into their territory, Baghdad has steadfastly refused.
