Word: barzani
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...rest of the country, in large part owing to its ruling parties, which began as guerrilla groups fighting Saddam's genocidal campaign against the ethnic Kurdish minority. After Saddam's downfall, the two parties put aside their differences - the KDP is a tribal-style organization dominated by the Barzani family, and the PUK is a socialist-like group run by a party cadre led by Jalal Talabani - to present a united Kurdish front in negotiations with Arab Iraqis and the U.S. over the future of the Iraqi state. As part of the deal, the KDP agreed to push...
...Baghdad, such as seeing that the government delivers on its constitutional obligations to return Kirkuk and other disputed areas to Kurdish governance. With Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian violence largely in check, the growing Kurdish-Arab discord has become the most worrisome fault line in the country. Massoud Barzani, head of the KRG, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki haven't spoken in over a year, and KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said recently that Kurdish-Arab relations are at their lowest point since Saddam was in power...
...electoral success could result in the further consolidation of power in the hands of the KDP. The balance of power between the KDP and the PUK started to shift in the KDP's favor after Talabani took the prestigious but highly symbolic office of the Iraqi presidency, allowing Massoud Barzani to build up a power base back home in Kurdistan. The Change List further eroded the PUK's stature in the region by mounting a significant challenge against the party on its home turf in Sulaimaniyah...
However, breaking the duopoly on power by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan will be difficult. The two main parties are led by two feudal and politically powerful families, the Barzanis and Talabanis, which, along with their extensive security forces, have waged at times violent civil war against each other. Since 2003, however, the two have cooperated to form a coalition that dominates the Kurdish parliament (as well as the Kurdish contingent to the national legislature in Baghdad). They have also split the most prestigious titles between them: Massoud Barzani is president of the KRG; Jalal...
...Talabani-Barzani alliance has been accused of hoarding the money directed to Kurdistan from both outside investment and Baghdad; critics have also charged it with nepotism, alleging that key political and administrative positions have been handed over to kinfolk or party stalwarts; opponents also say that the budget process lacks transparency. "It's these ideas," says Rebwar Karim Mahmood, a political-science professor at Suleimaniya University, "that opposition parties and groups are using to campaign in the elections." This month KRG prime minister Nechirvan Barzani (Massoud's nephew) launched a process to improve government openness. Qubad Talabani (Jalal...