Adding to the ever growing series of problems with January’s parliamentary vote in Iraq, Kurdish political leaders are suggesting the entire region could boycott the election unless alterations are made.
Since the 2003 US occupation, Iraq’s political system has been anything but simple. The idea of “one man one vote” is completely foreign to this system, with various amounts of seats set aside for assorted religious and ethnic minority factions.
The Kurdish officials are outraged by the law, as it stands, because they are unhappy with the current way the seats are divided, saying it is unfair to the Kurdish dominated north.
The Kurds aren’t the only ones angry with the partition of seats, as Sunni Vice President Hashemi was complaining earlier this week that the law totally ignores overseas refugees, essentially giving 2 million+ refugees (mostly Sunnis) no representation. He is threatening to veto the law.
Iraq’s elections were initially scheduled for January 15, but the delays in getting the current law passed have already pushed it back to January 21. Between the Kurdish and Sunni opposition, it seems that further changes will have to be made, threatening to delay the election even further.
Iraq never was a country and never will be one, as long as religious play a role in politics and imposes outdated and backward rules and restriction on society. The current map of Iraq was created and imposed by English colony after WW1. The non Arab Kurdish placed under Arab king’s rule in Baghdad, the majority shia to be ruled by minority Sunni in newly created new English colony called Iraq. The European model nation states were not allowed by English colonial empire after WW1. The mess we see today in many conflicts in the region (Pakistan-India, Iraq-Iran, Turkey-Syria, and Kurdish conflict with Iraq, Syria Turkey and Iran) is a calculated and expected result of colonial policy. The only solution today is a loose confederation between Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs. Each region can choose a secular or religious political system with its own economy with shared central oil revenue, similar to United Arab Emirate.
The Iraqi parliment is messed up. kurdistan shouldn't even be apart of iraq it should have its own country that way the kureds wouldn't have to get involved because all this suicied bombing is between the shias and the sunnis.