Shiite parties seek to gain favor with the Kurdish parties to include them in the majority charged with forming the new government, while the Kurds consider this a historical opportunity to impose their conditions on those wishing to ally with them.
ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan — The main Kurdish parties are awaiting the formation of the largest “Shiite” parliamentary bloc constitutionally tasked with forming the Iraqi government, to launch negotiations to participate in this government, at a time when the current Shiite division gives the Kurds a central role in the formation of the next government.
After agreeing Aug. 22 to unite the Kurds within a bloc accounting for the total number of the 55 Kurdish seats, in order to continue conducting dialogues formally with Baghdad, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Arez Abdullah announced the Kurds’ conditions for participating in the government.
The Shiite parties are currently split along two lines. The first brings together the State of Law Coalition led by Nouri al-Maliki and the Fatah Alliance led by Hadi al-Amiri, while the second includes Al-Nasr Coalition led by Haider al-Abadi, Muqtada al-Sadr's Sairoon Alliance and the Hikma bloc led by Ammar al-Hakim. Each believes it is capable of forming the largest parliamentary bloc separately from the other once they succeed in swaying the Sunnis and the Kurds.
The Kurds are seeking to change the status quo in Kirkuk that followed the Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum on Sept. 25, 2017, and allowed Iraqi security forces and Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to take over the oil-rich province expelling peshmerga forces. Therefore, the Kurds are now having reservations about Abadi whose actions came as "punishment to the people of Kurdistan,” according to Mahmoud, and about the Fatah Alliance that represents the PMU factions in control of Kirkuk.
The Kurdish parties seem for the time being hesitant or unwilling to favor Maliki or Abadi. Before stating their final position, they are waiting to see the pledges and guarantees that both parties will provide. Shiite parties do not dare make any concessions regarding Kirkuk and other disputed areas in Ninevah, Diyala or Salahuddin, so as not to be accused afterward of “waiving” federal gains made by the current government.
Naim Aboudi, spokesman for Asaib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous) belonging to the Fatah Alliance, said, “The Sunnis’ or Kurds’ conditions on the largest bloc in the next government will push the Shiite blocs to realign themselves because the Iraqi street will not show any mercy."
It is not unlikely to revive the Shiite alliance again, especially since Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, arrived last week in Iraq, at the same time as Iraq's Federal Supreme Court ratification on the final results of the election. Soleimani is known to have strong relations with all the Shiite parties, and Tehran might seek to unite the Shiite parties allowing them to impose their own conditions on the other Iraqi parties.
On the other hand, the political parties are aware that US envoy to Iraq Brett McGurk, who also arrived in Iraq at the same time as Soleimani, is urging the Kurds and Sunnis to join the Sadr-Hakim-Abadi alliance. Fatah Alliance member Jassem al-Bayati said in a statement to Almaalomah news agency, “Washington is trying through Trump’s representative, Brett McGurk, to pressure the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to support Abadi for a second term."
Negotiations for the formation of the largest parliamentary bloc are likely to take more time than expected, perhaps exceeding the time frame stipulated in the constitution, due to the huge complexities on the Iraqi scene that coincide with the height of the US-Iranian conflict. Therefore, the Kurds will not engage in any negotiations with the Shiite parties before the formation of the "largest bloc" and the nomination of an agreeable figure to head the new government, especially if Tehran's support for the Maliki-Amiri axis was established, against Washington's support for the Sadr-Hakim-Abadi axis.
Then the Kurds would prefer to see the Shiites uniting rather than losing the Iranian ally when it comes to the PUK, or the American ally when it comes to the KDP.