Kurdish parliament – a flexible business environment!

By Shwan Hassan:

Last year I childishly told a wise friend that the Kurdistan parliament is simply a business rather than a venerable political institution. But my friend evoked my nationalist feelings and convinced me to regret my thinking…However, a few days ago I saw six new MPs taking their parliamentary oath and once again I felt bad about the Kurdistan parliament. Why? Okay, to avoid being blamed as disloyal to Kurdistan,  please for a while consider me as a foreigner, standing on one of Kurdistan’s borders and taking a critical look at the Kurdistan parliament.

As a foreigner I see MPs acting like ordinary people, coming on TV shows criticizing, complaining and being flattering to their own parties. I asked one of them: why do not you fight within the parliament? He replied with sorrow: “the institution has been handicapped by the system” I clapped for this uneducated man, however I am still not sure if he knows how he has been imprisoned in parliament or if he just told me what he heard in the media!

Now, how costly is this institution for the Kurds?

The Kurdistan parliament consists of 111 members, each receiving more that ID8,000 000 (more than $6,800) as a monthly salary. This is in addition to the provision of good accommodation, security guards, overseas travel and ID 48,000 000 ($41,000)  to buy a  private car. Worse than the above, each MP will be retired with 80% of his/her salary (around ID 6,650 000 per month).

According to Hawlati newspaper, from its first session until now, 387 Kurdish MPs have retired and this costs Kurdistan’s budget ID 30,188,000,000 each year.

It is unimaginable how representatives in parliament retain their privileges by law.  In 2008 they reviewed the retirement law and reduced the minimum period of service required. According to the law any parliament member can be retired with 80% of his salary even if he resigns just two years after his election. But the story does not end there: a new candidate fills the position of the resigned one and the same corruption story repeats itself. It is a shameful and immoral that some of the parliament members stay silent so as to be able to collect their retirement privileges. How hilarious! One former MP has written in his resignation letter “The first day I entered the parliament building, I realized that I was in the wrong place and could not take the responsibility” So he should be asked by the public: “Why did not you resign at that moment?”

It was most disappointing when I saw the MPs of the ruling parties and the opposition all using the same tactic. Although the opposition members condemned these privileges in the media, they did not refuse the money in practice – although they could return the money to the national budget and show the public how honest they are. More disastrously, five out of the six recent resigners hold Phds – who can be depended upon if the academic elite disappoint voters in this way?

I must approve of Nikita Khrushchev’s view when he said: “Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river”. Yes, one of the promises by all lists was to abolish the retirement law and refuse to accept the privileges at the end of their terms in parliament. Unfortunately, as Kurds say, their promises became bubbles on water.