When I stopped fraud of elections alone
Life Story| Diyar Harki – Founder of KurdFile
Faith in the electoral process has collapsed. The outcomes appear engineered — structured precisely as the designers and financiers intend. There is no confidence that results reflect the genuine will of the people. Trust in the Kurdish opposition is equally fragile; there is little evidence they can defend the mandates entrusted to them by their voters.
In 2018, an instance of fraud at a polling station was personally confronted and halted. The response was relentless pressure — dozens upon dozens of phone calls directed at family members until withdrawal was forced. The fraud proceeded. That moment clarified a harsh reality: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) operate within a system where manipulation is normalized. Yet even more disappointing are those opposition parties that enter battles they cannot finish — unable or unwilling to safeguard the votes the public sacrificed to cast.
What unfolds resembles political theatre orchestrated by Iraq’s entrenched ruling forces — Shia blocs, Sunni blocs, the KDP, and the PUK alike. Public rivalry masks a deeper continuity of control. Hope cannot be built on structures that perpetuate the same patterns regardless of outcome.
Fragmented boycotts achieve nothing. If opposition forces believed the system irredeemable, a unified and total boycott was required — shuttering party offices, standing in the streets with citizens, sharing in economic hardship, and confronting the system directly. Instead, fragmentation prevailed. Businesses stagnated, public trust eroded, and opposition parties became decorative elements in a democracy that functions largely as performance.
Where wealth concentrates, dependency follows. Where resources are monopolized, the machinery of fraud thrives. Under such conditions, elections risk becoming ritual rather than representation.
And yet, abstention carries its own cost. Participation — however flawed — denies absolute silence. Even a small act of resistance inside a compromised system disrupts total control. History shows that even futile attempts can unexpectedly generate consequence.
If citizens do not appear at the polls, power structures will act in their absence. Silence is easily appropriated. Presence, however symbolic, is harder to erase.
Author Profile
- Diyar Harki is an independent investigative journalist and human rights advocate. As a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), he focuses on exposing corruption and human rights abuses in Kurdistan and Iraq. He voluntarily contributes to Kurdfile Media.
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