Kurdistan Parliament: Empty Seats, Stolen Salaries

Two Parties, One Goal: Looking Important While Doing Nothing

Salih Zhajlayi | Exclusive to iKurd.net
Translated by iKurd.net from Kurdish Awene

Let us begin with a brief definition of parliament. Parliament is a legislative institution in which representatives of the people gather in order to enact laws in the name of the people, supervise the government, and make important decisions.

Parliament often issues new laws and amends old ones to regulate the affairs of the people. It supervises the work of the government and, when necessary, summons ministers for questioning, and if needed votes to withdraw confidence. It approves or rejects the annual state budget and monitors whether that money has been properly spent.

Since members of parliament are representatives of the people, they convey the people’s demands to the government. In short, parliament is the voice of the people and the source of legislation and government oversight.

How important and necessary is it to have the Kurdistan Region Parliament?

If we carefully examine the Kurdistan Region Parliament, do we see that it fulfills the conditions for which it was created? The answer is no. It has been a year since the parliament was formed, yet until now no government has been formed. Therefore, this region continues to be administered even without a parliament.

So why should all that money be wasted freely on a useless, inactive parliament? Even if a government were formed, this parliament would still not be able to make any decisions, summon a minister for questioning, or pass a law that goes against the will of the ruling parties.

Parliament is not only unable to supervise the government or question it, but on the contrary, whenever it wishes, the government punishes parliament, because the majority of parliament members belong to the ruling parties, and they vote exactly as those parties want. For many years now, parliament has not even been aware of the budget, people’s salaries are not paid, and they are unable to do anything about it.

Without prolonging the discussion, this parliament was created solely to waste citizens’ wealth and to appease and accommodate members of the ruling parties so as to silence them. This parliament is called the voice of the people, but in reality it is the voice of two ruling parties, and they have turned it into an umbrella to conceal their theft and corruption.

A parliament that provides no benefit, yet consumes all this money, its absence would be better than its existence, and the money spent monthly on this parliament could pave several kilometers of roads. The president of Senegal says, we decided to dissolve our country’s parliament in order to build a factory to generate electricity from solar energy, because our country needs electricity more than it needs members of parliament who take free salaries and do no work.

Therefore, electricity is far better for our country than unproductive members of parliament. In reality, if there were justice, the Kurdistan Parliament should also be dissolved, and with the money they receive freely every month, roads and bridges should be repaired, electricity production increased, and schools and hospitals built.

How important and necessary is it for Kurds to participate in the parliament and Iraq’s central government?

Because Kurds are a minority in the Iraqi parliament, no national achievement for the Kurds will ever be attained through parliamentary voting alone unless there is agreement and consensus. Otherwise, Kurds must demand their rights directly from the center of power and possess a strong bargaining card, that is, Kurds must have a loud and courageous voice so that the central government is forced to fulfill Kurdish demands. Are Kurds at that level, and is their voice bold enough to obtain their rights? The answer is no. Why? There are many reasons why Kurds cannot obtain their rights.

First: Despite the fact that the Kurdish voice in Baghdad is a minority compared to the Arab voice, Kurdish party and faction members of parliament are not united or cohesive, rather, they have become enemies of one another, and each has aligned himself with a different Arab political current. The situation has reached the point where, in opposition to one another and in order to break Kurdish unity, they reveal every secret and weakness to their declared enemies.

Look at the situation now: instead of all Kurdish MPs in Baghdad gathering and devising a plan for unifying their voices, they are fighting over who will become deputy speaker of parliament and who will become president, this is despite the fact that both positions are ceremonial and have no authority to make decisions in the interest of the Kurds. All those who currently hold posts in the central government, from the president down to the lowest employee, are there solely to receive salaries from Baghdad, not to defend Kurds or secure their rights.

I have pointed out many times before that Mam Jalal was the strongest Kurdish politician in Baghdad and served two terms as president, recognized domestically and internationally, yet he was unable to implement Article 140 or reclaim the usurped rights of the Kurds, for which Kurds have shed blood for many years.

There are two reasons for this, first, the position of president in Iraq is a ceremonial one and not a decision-making post, second, all those who obtained positions in Baghdad at the expense of the Kurds, including the presidency and Mam Jalal himself, were so obsessed, infatuated, and thirsty for rank, office, and status that they were correspondingly negligent when it came to securing Kurdish rights.

Is it not a crime that Kurds have shed rivers of blood for many years for independence and their rights, yet now in Baghdad Dr. Latif becomes president without having shed a single drop of Iraqi blood for the Kurds, and the deputy speaker of parliament is merely the son of a servant? Do you believe such people are concerned about Kurdish rights, or about their own interests? Those who can truly represent Kurds in Baghdad are those who consistently insist on securing Kurdish rights, for whom position, rank, and status mean nothing, and who, whenever their demands are rejected, abandon all their personal interests and return to Kurdistan, unlike those who now cling to their seats and refuse to leave even under pressure.

Second: The second reason Kurds cannot attain their rights is the holding of the referendum and the loss of more than half of Kurdistan’s territory. The takeover of Kirkuk by the Baghdad government returned Kurds to square one. The strength and power Kurds had before losing Kirkuk were lost by their own hands through the referendum, which paved the way for Baghdad to do whatever it wished to Kurds.

Although the KDP always accuses the PUK of handing Kirkuk over to Baghdad after the referendum, whatever happened was the result of the referendum itself, and the referendum was conducted by the KDP, had there been no referendum, this would not have occurred.

Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi (left) talks to Massoud Barzani as he arrives Kurdistan Region, March 7, 2017. Photo: Abadi’s Twitter

Therefore, the primary culprit is the KDP. It should also be known that when the Iraqi army, the United States, and their allies agreed to retake Mosul and expel ISIS, Massoud Barzani received 400 million dollars from Abadi in exchange for two things, first, after ISIS was expelled from Mosul, the Kurds would hand Kirkuk back to Baghdad, which at that time was under Kurdish control, second, the Kurds would participate in the war against ISIS in Mosul and other areas.

Abadi has reiterated this many times to this day. So why does Mr. Massoud claim that Kirkuk returned to Iraqi control solely because of the referendum, when before the referendum he himself accepted money to hand Kirkuk back to Baghdad? That means Kirkuk was sold for money, and only God knows where that money went. Is it therefore justified for the KDP to continue accusing the PUK of betraying Kirkuk? I leave the answer to you, and I have no intention whatsoever of defending the PUK.

Kurdish peshmerga fighter in Kirkuk, the graffiti in Kurdish on the wall reads “we will not leave Kirkuk”, 2016. Photo: Aljazeera

Between the PUK and the KDP regarding the loss of Kirkuk, a saying comes to mind like an old proverb, “Both brothers are harmful, but Shahabaddin is more harmful,” in Kurdish meaning, both sides are traitors, but we do not know which is more treacherous. What matters is that both sides betrayed Kirkuk. Thus, snow melts even under light rain. In the end, it became clear that Kurds devour one another and are each other’s worst enemies, Miss Bell, more than 125 years ago, understood Kurds so well that even today Kurds have not been able to understand themselves as well as she did.

Third: Iraqi Kurds no longer possess any strong leverage to use against the Iraqi government. The decision for economic independence and independent oil extraction and sales was a very strong card, unfortunately, instead of strengthening the region’s economic infrastructure so that they would no longer depend on Baghdad and could raise the ceiling of their demands, they engaged in theft and plunder, plunged the region into massive debt, stole several months of public employees’ salaries, and out of necessity surrendered themselves back to Iraq. Therefore, nothing should be expected from Baghdad, because you have already surrendered to it under duress.

Massoud Barzani with Bafel Talabani — Massoud Barzani, the tribal leader of the Barzani clan, and the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) (left) with PUK party president Bafel Talabani in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, February 24, 2024. Photo: Barzani’s Press Office/X/via iKurd.net

Fourth: The continued discord between the PUK and the KDP is the primary cause of all the disasters facing the Kurds. These two parties have become two highly dangerous cancerous tumors that have invaded the body of this nation. As long as these two parties continue to operate in this manner, the position of the Kurdistan Region at both the Iraqi and international levels will continue to weaken, and Kurds will not be taken seriously.

What remains for me to say in conclusion is this, Kurdish participation in the central government under the current internal Kurdish conditions has no benefit. Day by day, the status and reputation of Kurds diminish, Kurds are ignored, and participation benefits only those who receive salaries, and nothing more.

Instead of striving to implement Article 140 and return the disputed areas to their rightful owners, Kurds in Baghdad fight over positions, while in the disputed territories Kurdish farmers are expelled and Turkmen and Arab farmers take over their lands. So how much greater humiliation can Kurds endure than this? Those who represent Kurds in Baghdad have become weak, disgraced, and insignificant, and instead of fighting over posts, they should withdraw from the government.

This article was originally published in the Kurdish language in Awene Newspaper on January 4, 2026.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.