November 10, 2017
Iraqi Kurdish President Masud Barzani left office last week, leaving his nephew to reconcile with the central government in Baghdad, with regional neighbors and with rival Kurdish parties after a failed referendum on independence.
Nechirvan Barzani, 51, who has served alongside his uncle as prime minister, will now be the main authority figure in the executive of the Kurdish autonomous region, following Masud Barzani’s departure as president, Kurdish officials said.
“The prime minister will be the key person during this transitional period [until elections next year],” said Hoshyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister, now advisor to the Kurdish government and senior member of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The elder Barzani, a 71-year-old veteran guerrilla leader, had run the Kurdish autonomous region since 2005. He announced his resignation after the September 25 referendum on independence backfired, prompting the central government to send troops to recapture territory held by the Kurds outside their autonomous region. The Kurds were left with no public support from anywhere in the world.
Nechirvan, who has served as prime minister for all but three years since 2006, is seen in Kurdish politics as a less polarizing figure, having warmer relations than his uncle with rival Kurdish parties.
He also has a close working relationship with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has backed Baghdad in the central government’s dispute with the Kurds since the referendum.
The Kurdish regional parliament voted to divide the presi-dent’s powers among parliament, the judiciary and the cabinet, until parliamentary and presidential elections are next held. The elections were originally scheduled for November 1, but have now been postponed eight months.
Before the referendum, Barzani’s son Masrour was seen as his likely successor, but he has been damaged by his strong backing of the secession vote.
Masud Barzani will for now remain head of the ruling party and will still sit on the High Political Council, a non-governmental body that emerged after the referendum.
Kurdish politics have been dominated for decades by the KDP, led by three generations of the Barzani family, and its main rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by the family of Jalal Talabani, who died in October. Both parties will now have to find new direc-tions. There are other parties that may now make a bid for more authority.