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By Mufid Abdulla:
The four new decrees announced by the President of Kurdistan on 28th August reflect the challenge facing a president struggling to restore confidence in his coalition and seeking to renew negotiations with the opposition parties. Masud Barzani has previously disappointed those who hoped that his 21st March speech about reform signalled a real drive against corruption and nepotism. The plain truth is that these latest presidential decrees need to be implemented. What we have seen in the past is all talk and no action.
The decrees might not be enough to revive negotiations with the opposition. Unfortunately, they are not something you can fully implement tomorrow: they require new institutions.
Barzani’s announcement relates to four main points, all of which have been previously raised by the opposition parties:
1. Bringing to justice those people who had a role in shooting the demonstrators on 17th February – according to his decree, no party has the right to protect any of these criminals.
2. The police and other security forces have no right to arrest political activists unless they have an arrest warrant issued by the judiciary.
3. The release to the opposition parties of the budget which was previously blocked by the ruling parties for political reasons (to put the opposition under financial pressure).
4. An investigation into the victimisation of hundreds of government employees who have had their wages withheld for supporting the opposition.
The solutions to the crisis besetting Kurdistan are fundamental and long-term: the key solution is to give power to the judicial system, allowing it to be independent and free from interference by political parties. Without this the crisis will continue, and it will get worse and more costly.
These decrees are transparently an attempt by Barzani to convince the people that he wants to talk to the opposition and resolve the political deadlock. And yet last night we had yet another mysterious attack on a prominent member of the independent media. These measures are really part of an attempt to compete with the opposition. Barzani should convince us that he is the President of Kurdistan as a whole, not just Dholk and Zako.
[…] After 17th February and the massacre in front of the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Sulaymani, Gorran faced a welter of accusations of stirring violence and so on. Gorran has defended itself and embarked on a political campaign to defeat the objectives and machinations of the two ruling parties over the past six months. At the beginning of the protests in Saray Square, the party displayed a lack of strategy and clarity of purpose and this has been acknowledged by both friend and foe alike. It is also true that Gorran went on to play a leading role in coordinating activities during and after the demonstrations. But now it faces the daunting task of redefining the whole organisation, especially following the concessions announced last week by President Barzani. […]