Iraqi Elections and Kurdistan

In the following days I will try to shed lights on the coming Iraqi elections which is exactly about 29 days from now.
This time, there will be no Kurdistan elections. Only Iraqi elections. This is because the Kurdistan elections in January was for 4 years (permanent government).

Well we have not yet seen this permanent government. There are still 2 Kurdish governments instead of one. This has angered many Kurds.

For this reason, many Kurds don't want to participate in the next Iraqi elections.

This will give a kick in the teeth for the Kurdish political parties, but political observers are not very worried about this.

This is what happened in the Iraqi Referendum on 15th of October 2005 :

"Kurds did not go to vote in masses, but the results said that turnout in Kurdistan was about 95%. Magic isn't ?
Nope it is not magic. The Kurdish political parties simply voted for us. They just sat there and filled out the ballots. Since the elections monitors were members of both parties, no violations were recorded.

This time, I am afraid the same thing will happen.

I have made my mind up and I will not participate in the elections. If you remember last year I initially said that I will not participate because the Iraqi government has not done much about Kirkuk. Then there was a decision that Kurdish refugees in Kirkuk would be allowed to vote and I changed my mind.

But this time it is different. My anger is not towards the Iraqi government, but the Kurdish government.

We feel like we have been cheated and fooled by our own Kurdish politicians. Therefore, as many Kurds have decided, I will not participate because :

1. Kurdish politicians need a kick in the mouth in order to come back to the people of Kurdistan.
2. This kick can best be achieved by not giving them any seats in Baghdad. Now they will try to use the "Nationalism" card and say that "Arabs will eat us if we didn't have enough seats in Baghdad", well, why we care about this ? You guys eat us in Kurdistan why should we care about you guys being eaten up in Baghdad ?

3. There are only two Kurdish groups : Kurdistan Alliance (PUK & KDP) and Islamic Union of Kurdistan. I am not interested in any of them.
4. Even though that I don't go to vote, I am sure that the folks at the Polling Station will fill in my name and register me as "Voted for Kurdistan Alliance".
5. This time the election system has changed. This means that if every single Kurd holding the Iraqi passport in this world vote for the Kurdish List, the number of the Kurdish seats in the parliament will be 40 t0 45. (New Shitte suggested system). So this is not like January.

So don't be surprised if Kurds were the opposition in the next parliament.


(p.s. check my other post in KBU about the American reactions towards the Kurdistan adverts)