After Kurdish Vote, Talabani Pledges to Rebuild Party

[KURDISTANICA]

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, July 28 -- Facing what could prove a turning point
in tumultuous Kurdish politics, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani vowed
Tuesday that he would lead the revival of his party after a
surprisingly successful challenge by opponents in last week's election
led some to speculate that it might be the beginning of the party's
end.

In an interview, Talabani, the 75-year-old politician and former
guerrilla who founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) more than
30 years ago, sought to cast the election results in the best light.
But the success of the Change list, led by former Talabani
colleagues , against an alliance of the PUK and the other leading
Kurdish party clearly surprised him.

More than a contest among parochial groups in a relatively quiet
region, the struggle for political power in the Kurdish north could
have sweeping repercussions for Iraq's mercurial politics. The
alliance between Talabani's party and Kurdish President Massoud
Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party has held for years, though no one
has really forgotten the civil war they fought in the 1990s. Their
claim to represent Kurdish consensus is crucial, too, in negotiations
with Baghdad over today's most pressing issues: a law to share Iraq's
oil revenue and a resolution to the disputed border between Iraq's
Arab and Kurdish regions.

Talabani promised that there would be changes in his party's program
and added: "Surely there will be changes within the leadership."
Despite his age and bouts with ill health, Talabani suggested the work
would be his priority.

"President of Iraq is something temporary, but being a member of the
PUK is something permanent," he said with an Iraqi flag behind his
desk, one of the few in a region that enjoys a remarkable degree of
autonomy from the government in Baghdad.

Many expect Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to try to exploit
Kurdish divisions in his feud with the autonomous region. Although
official results in Saturday's election have yet to be announced,
Change is expected to hold almost as many seats as each of the two
Kurdish ruling parties. A colleague of Talabani's said Talabani had
expected Change to win just a few seats, far fewer than the 25 or so
that it may wind up with in the 111-member parliament.

"When a group makes a revolution and seizes power, they say they have
the right to lead the country," Talabani said, by way of defending the
results. "In our country, on the contrary, we who led the revolution,
we gave the chance to the people to decide."

Talabani is quick to smile and has an avuncular appeal, though there
is still an edge to his words, testament to years he spent in
mountains so inhospitable to foes. While he relishes the prospect of
writing his memoirs, he said, he still believes he has more years to
work with his party, a point on which not everyone agrees.

Discontent runs rife in Kurdish life over the dominance of the two
parties, whose leadership exercises far more influence than the
parliament itself. Complaints of corruption are rampant, as is
frustration over nepotism and patronage. Despite Talabani's
contention, the parties still treat their legitimacy as a war-won
right.

"He's too old to do that," Muhammad Tofiq, a Change candidate and
former colleague of Talabani's, said of Talabani's promise to lead the
reform. "And the people around him, they all have their agendas. It's
very difficult to see how they can rebuild it."

Talabani himself was buffeted by criticism from each direction. Some
said he spent too much time in Baghdad, losing touch with his Kurdish
constituency. He acknowledged the criticism. Others said that as
Iraq's president, he belonged in Baghdad.

"He's a president, and he has much more important jobs to do," Mahmoud
Othman, an independent Kurdish member of Iraq's parliament, said from
his home in Baghdad. "Baghdad is most important to us. It's the
capital. It's where our problems are going to be solved."

In both Baghdad and Irbil, the Kurdish capital, the challenges to
Talabani are expected to proliferate in the months ahead. The dispute
with the federal government has grown, with Kurdish leaders in Irbil
warning that tension could erupt into bloodshed. Talabani, though, was
much more conciliatory, even suggesting the possibility of an alliance
with Maliki in January elections that will choose a new national
parliament.

Although Barzani and Maliki have not talked in a year, and bitterness
remains pronounced, Talabani predicted they would need to meet for a
only few hours to reconcile.

"I think they can solve it in two meetings," he said.

The two Kurdish ruling parties, though, are themselves entering
uncharted territory. They went into the election with a promise to
evenly split their share of parliament seats. Barham Salih, a Talabani
ally and Iraq's deputy prime minister, was supposed to become the
Kurdish region's prime minister. But even before Change won most of
its votes in Talabani's stronghold of Sulaymaniyah, Barzani's
officials began questioning, sometimes bluntly, why they shouldn't
retain the post. The speculation only mounted after the votes were
tallied.

Talabani was dismissive. He planned to meet Barzani on Wednesday to
lock up the deal. "There's no doubt," he said of Salih's chances.

Most threatening, though, may be the test posed by his party's
dissidents, some of whom he said he has known for as long as 50 years.
The revolt was led by Talabani's former deputy, Nosherwan Mustafa, who
has vowed to overturn the party's hegemony over public life. His
critics call him an architect of that very hegemony.

"There was no number two or number three in the PUK," Mustafa said.
"There was only number one."

"I'm telling you very frankly, I'm very glad they left the PUK,"
Talabani answered. "They were our main problem and our main headaches
for years and years."

But, he added, if he saw Mustafa tomorrow, he would offer only kind
words.

"I would congratulate him that he got seats in parliament," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR2009072801246_pf.html