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Dr Shaho Saeed – Gorran’s spokesman and a former MP – was interviewed by The Kurdistan Tribune. This is part one.
KT: What prompted you to forward your resignation from the Kurdistan Parliament and what is your response to those people who voted for you. Do you have any plans to go back to your previous job or to retire?
SS: On 9th August we issued a statement to the people of Kurdistan and we explained our reasons for resignation. We declared our position as four MPs in the Kurdistan Parliament to the mass of people when they voted for us to be their representatives. We confirmed to our people our conclusion that, since 17th February 2011, the venue of the Kurdistan Parliament no longer had any legitimacy to preserve the rights of the Kurdish people, and we could not defend the people’s rights to hold demonstrations. The government does not have any ability to investigate any of the atrocities which took place on 17th February against the people of Kurdistan. We, as the Gorran MPs, boycotted most of the meetings and forwarded certain conditions to the leader of the house for us to go back to the hall of the Parliament; the leader of Parliament did not accept our demands and therefore we have resigned from the Kurdistan Parliament. In answer to the second part of your question, we asked the Kurdistan Parliament whether it was possible for us to be retired from our posts as MPs since all four of us wanted to go back to the original work we had before becoming MPs. But they refused our demands and told us these demands were illegitimate according to the terms and conditions of the Kurdistan Parliament. According to Article 13 we had lost our rights to go back to our previous jobs. I believe there are certain political reasons for this action and it has nothing to do with the terms and conditions.
The law contains two types of law consisting of rights and responsibilities. Article 13 refers to the retirement law; this law prepares the task of retiring the MP and does NOT refer to their responsibility. We have asked the Parliament to consider our rights by special law and to exempt us from that particular term and condition. I trust this is our right to demand what we want although at the present moment this right is forbidden to us.
KT: What are the key challenges facing the KRG and the south of Kurdistan?
SS: We are facing a lot of challenges: some are internal and some are external. In my opinion the internal challenges are far greater than the external ones. Facing the internal challenges is more compatible to the resolving of our causes of Kurdistan; in turn these are directly related to successful strategies to solve the external challenges. We can face the external challenges if we succeed in establishing a strong institution and our own democratic system, in which our citizens can feel they have rights and social justice. The most dangerous situation we have is a comprehensive system which has been controlled by two parties, who have controlled all the political and social aspects of the lives of the Kurdish people; in reality this has controlled all our lives. This type of system has been created by the two ruling parties who have created the corruption in which they have burnt the trust between the government and their citizens. With this situation, they have left a very bad taste in the mouths of people.
KT: Some foreign politicians or observers have praised the economic growth of the KRG – what do you think? What is the Gorran Party’s programme for building the infrastructure of Kurdistan?
SS: These observers are being deceived by the style of economic growth in Kurdistan, because they are not part of the social class. Some of them do conduct their analyses either in their personal interests or their country’s interests. It is true there is a huge inflow of money into Kurdistan and Iraq because we have the ability to produce gas and oil. But the economic problems have arisen due to a lack of transparency and the unequal distribution of income; we do not have any economic plan to enable Kurdistan or to transform it from a consumer nation to a producer nation. In our election manifesto we proposed a programme to solve these economic crises. We have established two departments – economic and political, which have prepared a lot of projects to solve Kurdistan’s problems.
KT: If the Gorran Party comes to power will you create a democratic constitution? If that is the case what is the blueprint for the constitution?
SS: Building a constitution is not the task for one political party. We have not given ourselves the right to single-handedly write the Kurdistan constitution even if we were in power. We need agreement from the mass of people: in that way this can be the social bond for all our people to relate to. At the same time we do not accept and agree for the constitution to be passed without our input because we are representing 25% of the Kurdish people. The most powerful article which should be contained in the constitution is to give legitimacy to the Parliament as the main executive legislative for the whole of Kurdistan. Also, the constitution should have the ability to audit and investigate the state apparatus. It is very important for the constitution to advocate the decentralisation of the offices in the cities and towns of Kurdistan and respect an independent judicial system.
© Kurdistantribune.com, terms of use
Shaho Saeed and his Gorran are presenting themselves as the reformers and correctors of a “corrupt government”.
So far so good.
The trouble is those gentlemen have nothing to offer to prove that they are different from those at government except their own words.
And in order to believe them they have to be credible.
Credibility is usually proven by 2 things:
1- by their past deeds. Their past is the same as of those whom they criticize and attack.
They have been part of PUK and the other parties. So blaming those parties and displaying themselves as the right ones is a distortion of the facts and is the opposite of credibility.
2- the other way of proving credibility, if you have no past and you are starting from scratch, is your reasoning and your interpretation and analysis of the society and the political matters.
You have to be honest, stay with the facts and keep away from lying to the public.
Shaho Saeed and his companions can’t satisfy the first condition.
And when it comes to the second condition they are breaking that one massively as well.
Shaho Saeed’s words are pure demagogy and show how little respect he has for the public, the same people he alleges to save from injustice and tyranny.
This interview contains dozens of those distortions of facts.
Regards,
Dilshad Xoshnaw
The biggest mistake Shahoo Saeed did he resign from the paliament .He should not forget the civil struggle is not the easy one .i belive the only four of them (Shaho,Perihan,Jaffar,Zana)presenting the good quality of Gorran MP,TO me the rest of the Gorran MP ,the same as Otheres looking for money incentives to stay as MP