Iraqi Kurds Endure Seven Years Of Waiting for New Constitution
Negotiations continue on a draft new constitution for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq which would have the president be selected by the parliament, rather than directly elected by the people, reports Abdel Hamid Zebari.
Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-independent autonomous region since 1992, has been seeking an endorsement of its constitution for seven years now. Political differences between the ruling and opposition parties, however, have prevented the draft constitution from being put to a referendum after the regional parliament approved the draft in 2009.
The Kurdish region elected a parliament and formed a government independent of Baghdad in 1992. This was done under the protection of the international coalition that was formed to drive the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991. Since Hussein's overthrow in 2003, Iraqi Kurds have participated in developing Iraq's political process and in the writing its federal constitution. Although this constitution provides for a federal region, the two sides have yet to agree on a special constitution for the region of Kurdistan.
The draft Kurdistan constitution consists of 122 articles, and the project has been in the works for nearly seven years.
However, the rise of political opposition since the 2009 elections has prevented the two main parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by President of Kurdistan Region Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Iraqi president Jalal Talabani — from holding a referendum on the draft. In the 2009 elections, three Iraqi Kurdish opposition forces won seats in the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament (IKP): the Movement for Change won 25 seats, the Islamic Group (Jamaa Islamiya) four seats, and the Kurdistan Islamic Union six, out of a total of 111 seats.
