ABNA24 - Two weeks after election of Iraqi prime minister, politician factions are pushing to consolidate their share and position in the new government, something making Baghdad, Erbil, and Suleimanyeh scenes of political horse-trading.
In this connection, Odai Abdulhadi, a member of the ruling parliamentary bloc Shiite Coordination Framework (SCF) announced plans for an "important" meeting of the coalition in the coming days. The meeting, according to him, can remove all of the ambiguities regarding composition of the cabinet, the rate of participation of the political parties, especially the SCF. He emphasized that the meeting is of great importance and odds are it will produce agreements that will make up the framework of the new Iraqi government.
Iraqi parliament member Mokhtar al-Mousawi, detailing the latest coalition talks on forming a new cabinet, said negotiations have yet to reach the stage of discussing specific minister names. That means submitting candidates for a parliamentary vote could face delays.
Still, evidence shows the rivalry among political factions over cabinet seats and ministry shares has reached its peak.
Against this backdrop, Iraq’s prime minister-designate, Ali Faleh Kazem al-Zaydi, has spent recent days trying to secure backing from key political players for his cabinet, all within the 30-day legal deadline. In that effort, his trip to the Kurdistan Region and meetings with top Kurdish leaders on Sunday rank among the most significant political moves.
In Erbil, al-Zaydi met with Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Nechirvan Barzani, president of the region, and Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), aiming to lay the groundwork for a deal on Kurdish participation in the next government.
The Kurdistan Region has long been a decisive player in Iraq’s power equations. Since Saddam Hussein’s fall and the formation of Iraq’s new political order in 2003, no government in Baghdad has achieved lasting stability without at least the relative consent of the Kurds. That’s why al-Zaydi’s talks with Kurdish leaders cannot be analyzed solely through the lens of ministry distribution, but they are also part of a larger effort to manage the chronic rifts between Baghdad and Erbil.
During their meeting with al-Zaydi, KDP leaders reiterated that the core problem between the region and Baghdad is not about individual figures but stems from the central government’s policies and approaches. KDP officials believe successive Iraqi governments over the years have failed to guarantee the region’s legal and federal rights as enshrined in the constitution.
Kurdistan Regional Government spokesperson Noureddin Waisi, speaking on the matter, said the Kurds have clear demands, including respect for the region’s constitutional rights, full recognition of Kurdistan’s federal status, fair budget allocation, and resolution of disputed territories. Among those territories, Kirkuk remains the most prominent flashpoint that has fueled friction between Baghdad and Erbil for years.
Kurdistan Patriotic Union vs. Kurdistan Democratic Party
Following up his political push, Al-Zaydi visited Suleimanyeh and met with Bafel Talibani, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The meeting is seen as important as the PUK in recent years has tried to boost its power in both central government in Baghdad and the KRG. The two described national political developments and the process of government formation and highlighted the need for collective cooperation to face the challenges the country is facing.
What makes the debate in the Kurdistan region different from the past ones is the rise of a new inter-Kurdish coalition, one that bears the potentials to tip the scales of power in the autonomous region, and even in Baghdad. All the major Kurdish parties, excluding the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), are negotiating with the SCF under a coalition holding 30 parliamentary seats. The coalition covers the PUK, National Stance Movement, Kurdistan Islamic Union, New Generation Movement, and the Islamic Movement.
The formation of such a bloc has put the KDP in a tight spot. Despite holding 26 parliamentary seats, the KDP now finds itself as the only major Kurdish force left out of the new Kurdish consensus. That shift could carry serious consequences for the region’s political future, especially as smaller parties edge closer to the PUK, raising the likelihood of a 50+1 majority coalition in the Kurdish parliament. If that coalition takes shape, it could neutralize the KDP’s boycott of parliamentary sessions and force the party back to the negotiating table to avoid political isolation.
Should that scenario play out, the KDP’s traditional status as the region’s dominant power would face a major challenge. The PUK has already wrested away the Iraqi presidency from the KDP after two decades, and now hopes to expand its influence inside the Kurdistan Region’s own structures, including the local parliament.
The PUK is now working to lock in more political coordination with the SCF in Baghdad, aiming for a bigger role in the next government. By securing several ministries in the cabinet, it hopes both to boost its influence over Baghdad’s decision-making and strengthen its political standing at home, a move that could tip the power balance against the KDP.
Analysts, meanwhile, believe a stronger PUK could also usher in a new phase in Baghdad-Erbil relations. Unlike the KDP, which has repeatedly clashed with the federal government in recent years, Suleimanyeh-aligned factions have historically taken a softer line toward Baghdad. On sensitive issues like oil, gas, and the budget, they would likely adopt positions closer to the central government’s.
That matters most in the oil and gas case. Baghdad has repeatedly declared the Kurdistan region’s independent oil exports illegal and has tried to tighten its grip over Kurdish energy resources. If PUK-aligned factions gain the upper hand, the central government’s hand in this file could strengthen, piling even more political pressure on the KDP.
Constant US interference
Beside home competition, the US pressures are becoming a decisive factor in the process of government formation. Having struggled during the prime minister election to sway the nation's political dynamics, Washington now has set specific conditions to support the future Iraqi government.
According to the reports by sources familiar with the US Iraq agenda, Washington has called the government to fully cut off ties to the anti-American armed factions. These groups are against the illegal American military presence in Iraq. The US also asserts that these groups should not allowed any role in the Iraq's political structure and the new cabinet should draw clear borders between the official institutions and the militias fighting for Iraqi independence from American influence.
These demands come as the resistance groups under Public Mobilization Forces (PMF) now form a critical part of Iraq’s political and security landscape. Many of these factions, formed in 2014 in opposition to the foreign-backed ISIS terrorist group, not only wield significant influence in parliament but have also operated in recent years as part of Iraq’s official armed forces structure.
That is why a broad cross-section of Iraqi political forces views American pressure as blatant meddling in the country’s internal affairs. Critics of Washington argue that the US is trying to use political and economic leverage to force Baghdad into sidelining factions that don’t align with its regional agenda.
On the opposite side, supporters of the resistance groups, for their part, insist that these forces became an integral part of Iraq’s defense architecture after the fight against ISIS and the security upheavals of recent years, and that eliminating them is neither feasible nor in keeping with Iraq’s on-the-ground realities.
Washington is leaning on certain aligned factions inside Iraq to try and clear its own hurdles, but the resistance groups, which form a major pillar of the country’s defense structure, have so far prevented these scenarios from spiraling into instability. Given their growing parliamentary clout, a significant share of major political decisions today is effectively unimplementable without their alignment. Which means Washington’s efforts to push to the resistance groups to the sidelines are going nowhere.
In general, Iraq is living sensitive and complex days in which the competition for political shares is gaining momentum and simultaneously the US pressures to limit the power of resistance groups put the skids under the new government. In such an atmosphere, the performance of the new government in managing the home differences and foreign pressures plays a determining role the future of cabinet and the country's political stability.
/129
Your Comment