INSECURE LEADERS

Dr. Zmkan Ali Saleem

The stability and integrity of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) are being challenged by the intensifying rivalry between the region’s two dominant parties: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). While they have refused to compromise and collaborate in the interest of the KRI and its citizens, the leaders of both parties have primarily relied on opportunistic tactics to weaken each other and secure short-term gains. This has undermined not only the stability of the KRI, but also the longterm power and survival of the PUK and KDP leaderships. How can this self-defeating behaviour be explained? This report attributes the deepening divides between the PUK and KDP to the insecurity of the two parties’ leaders. Rooted in the predatory system the parties established in the region after 1991, the leaders’ insecurity has recently been exacerbated by several factors, including economic vulnerabilities, party fragmentation, the emergence of a younger generation of leaders, and party-driven regional alignments. Leaders’ insecurity and the rivalry and mistrust it entails may result in further weakening, and potentially the demise of, the KRI as an autonomous region within Iraq.

Read full version of the report published by The Middle East Centre of LSE