Feb. 27, 2023

Party leadership battle reignites in Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraq/Politics

The story: The long-running leadership struggle within one of Iraqi Kurdistan’s two main parties has reignited. Contradictory court rulings have been issued on whether Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani lawfully ousted his former co-president Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabany in 2021. The contention has exacerbated an open sore within the party, and bolstered perceptions that the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is interfering in the PUK’s internal affairs for its own benefit.

The coverage: The Erbil Court of Appeals on Feb. 20 found that Sheikh Jangi’s removal as co-president contradicted the PUK’s internal regulations and that he remains as co-president. This reinforced a Feb. 1 decision by the court.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi elections judicial authority in Baghdad ruled the following day that Talabani is the sole leader of the PUK.

  • Iraq’s judiciary is frequently accused of being susceptible to political bias. Coverage of the two decisions has therefore assumed that the Baghdad ruling was influenced by Talabani’s Arab political allies while the Erbil decision was at the behest of the KDP.

  • On Feb. 22, Sheikh Jangi released a video on social media lauding the Erbil court’s decision. In a speech, he offered to reconcile with Talabani but said that he and his supporters would be “forced to separately continue our political efforts and activities under the name of the PUK” if unity is not possible. PUK media outlets—which are controlled by Talabani—focused on the Baghdad ruling, asserting that it was definitive and that the leadership question was closed. In parallel, Talabani and other members of his leadership group did not react publicly to Sheikh Jangi’s remarks.

  • The next morning, on Feb. 23, reporters from local Kurdish television channels were summoned to Talabani’s office expecting that he would make a statement about Sheikh Jangi. Instead, the event turned out to be a press conference with a famous Kurdish actress who had been meeting with Talabani on an apolitical matter. 


The context/analysis:
Set up in 1976, the PUK brought together a dissident wing of the KDP and several left-wing parties. It saw greater decentralization in decision making but also more disorganization.

  • The party entered a period of uncertainty in 2012, when founding leader and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani—Bafel Talabani’s father—suffered a debilitating stroke. He never fully recovered and passed away in Oct. 2017.

  • Other PUK leaders of the late Talabani’s generation, like his widow Hero Ibrahim Ahmed and Kosrat Rasul, have suffered from health problems and begun to distance themselves from active leadership roles. Some observers posit that they are being replaced by their sons.

After years of delay, the PUK held its fourth party congress in Dec. 2019. The coronation of Bafel Talabani as new leader was upended when Sheikh Jangi unexpectedly garnered most votes for the General Leadership Council, the party’s current central executive. In a contentious compromise, Sheikh Jangi and Talabani were proclaimed PUK co-presidents.

  • Though he did not previously hold an official party position, Talabani secured authority as the eldest son of his father. This is while Sheikh Jangi—a vocal critic of the Barzani family—built patronage networks through his work with the PUK’s security forces, particularly the US-trained Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG).

In July 2021, Talabani moved to oust several key officials within the PUK’s intelligence and counterterrorism units who were loyal to Sheikh Jangi. He also shut down a media outlet supported by Sheikh Jangi.

  • Shortly thereafter, Talabani announced that there had been an attempt to poison him. Although some observers interpreted this as Sheikh Jangi being implicated, Talabani has not directly named the alleged culprit.

In late Aug. 2021, the PUK proclaimed Talabani as sole party leader. In early November, Talabani expelled Sheikh Jangi as well as several of his allies, and seized full control of party finances.

  • Sheikh Jangi opted to pursue a legal strategy claiming that internal PUK by-laws had been violated. He initially filed a suit in Sulaimaniyah, which was later transferred to Baghdad.

  • Over the past year, Sheikh Jangi has largely kept a low profile, but occasionally criticized Talabani’s leadership, particularly after the PUK’s performance in the Oct. 2021 Iraqi parliamentary elections.

Whatever the legal merits of Sheikh Jangi’s case, Talabani retains a hold over the PUK’s financial, political and security apparatuses.

  • Once thought to be amenable to working with the KDP, relations between Sulaimaniyah and Erbil have deteriorated significantly under Talabani’s leadership.

  • Talabani has focused on building relations with the Iran-backed Shiite Coordination Framework in Baghdad. He has also met numerous times over the past year with Faiq Zaidan of the Federal Supreme Court. The latter has led some observers to allege that political bias played a role in the outcome of Sheikh Jangi’s federal lawsuit.

The future: As long as he is in Sulaimaniyah, Sheikh Jangi will likely remain a thorn in Talabani’s side. The PUK leader may in parallel alienate some within his party as he girds to further cement authority.

  • Disagreements between the KDP and the PUK led to the delaying of the Oct. 2022 elections for the Kurdistan regional parliament. There is no apparent schedule for when the polls will be held.

  • The PUK’s internal leadership battle and general voter frustration were expected to negatively impact the party’s performance in the Kurdish parliamentary elections. At the same time, Sheikh Jangi is not likely to create a new party.

  • Emboldened by better electoral performance and the PUK’s prolonged crisis, the KDP has increasingly sought to dispense with the power-sharing formula in Iraqi Kurdistan agreed in 2005. This trajectory is likely to continue.
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