Iraqi Kurdistan’s two ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Talabani family’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), are nearing formation of a new Kurdistan Regional Government cabinet more than three months after elections. While successive U.S. administrations and European Union partners have demanded the two family-dominated Kurdish parties cooperate in a unitary government, the new cabinet instead appears to return to the 1990s-era de facto confederation of party fiefdoms. At the time, each party maintained its own prime minister and cabinet, one centered in Erbil and the other in Sulaymani. Most often, each pretended to be the real government and simply ignored the other.
On January 16, 2025, then scions of both parties—PUK President Bafel Talabani and Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani—did meet and said they reached an agreement. In effect, they merely agreed to rebrand their parties’ 2006 strategic agreement as new, rather than advance reforms. In effect, both Talabani and Barzani seek a Band-Aid solution as neither wants to compromise, but both realize public patience with cabinet formation delays has run out.
Each party [had] maintained its own prime minister and cabinet, one centered in Erbil and the other in Sulaymani.
There is plenty of blame to go around. As prime minister, Barzani has shown little interest in unity. He uses the rhetoric of building “a stronger Kurdistan” to consolidate family control rather than share power. Just as KDP head Masoud Barzani risked intra-Kurdish civil war to pass the baton to son Masrour, Masrour’s primary goal now is to promote the interests of his eldest son Areen over those of his brothers and cousin Nechirvan, let alone someone outside the family like Bafel. Masrour no longer hides authoritarian ambitions; he jails journalists and political activists. He would have seized even greater personal power had he not had to worry about wooing Western donors whose patience with the Barzanis’ antics wears thin.
The irony is Masrour could have won public support had he had left behind his father’s tribal mentality; instead, he views power as a zero-sum game and seeks to take over everything from everyone. He believed he could be the Kurdish equivalent of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but he had neither the financial resources, popular support, nor intellect.
In his previous government, Masrour did succeed in humiliating the PUK, shutting them out of key decisions and embarrassing Bafel’s brother Qubad, the deputy prime minister, by forcing him to rescind commitments or change wording in documents to which he had agreed in negotiations. As a result, the Talabani brothers allowed their antagonism toward the KDP and the Barzani family to dominate their election campaign. The primary PUK message was that the Talabani’s party would oppose every KDP policy. The PUK prefers now to cooperate with Baghdad over Erbil on everything from the oil industry to civil service salaries.
The KDP will dominate its zone and the PUK will have absolute power in Sulaymani, Halabja, and their environs.
The new Kurdistan Regional Government cabinet will form in coming days or weeks with the understanding that the KDP will dominate its zone and the PUK will have absolute power in Sulaymani, Halabja, and their environs. Bafel rejects integration of the peshmerga and seeks control over the militia and security forces rather than forming a national force. Mutual distrust fuels the belief that maintaining their militias is essential for survival against potential elimination by the other party. The PUK also now demands that Qubad Talabani, as deputy prime minister, should wield executive power, effectively giving legal cover for practical autonomy in the PUK zone.
The two parties may have mutual interests, but they have no common values. Any arrangements between them will be fleeting, cosmetic, or weak. Each statelet’s goal will be not to advance the Kurdish cause, but to avoid or contain violence. This leaves ordinary Kurds disillusioned. The tragedy is that, rather than be a unifier, Masrour has became the most divisive figure in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s history. The Kurdish dream to have a national government is gone, replaced by two family fiefdoms.
