Kurdistan world: opposition participation and significance of election; a view on the last Kurdistan elections

By Aso Ali – According to literature of democracy and pluralism, the importance of people participation in political arena generally and election especially is not just to make a good government which is some time not the case at all. It is true that when people have a say in putting those who rule them in power, the government has more legitimacy in form of a political capital on which the ruling group depends in its rule. But more that, in the modern world election is seen as an effective channel through which the resentment and discontent of the public with the incumbents can be expressed peacefully. It is this demobilization of mass dissatisfaction with a certain ruling group which periodic elections are intended to perform. Here, we can repeat what founders of modern democracy have said: democracy replaces bullet with ballot.

From this theoretical premise I want to frame my argument that one of the most significance of the last general elections in Kurdistan has been the fact that this election gave the people a peacefully democratic method to channel their discontent with the two ruling political parties by voting to alternative political group/s mainly Goran List.

We all witnessed the growing the Kurdistan’s public resentment with the way the two ruling parties exercise power and government. These resentments were evident in frequent and some time violent demonstrations in many part of Kurdistan region from Halabja to Garmian to Halwer and Badinan. It may not be an exaggeration if we say that the past three were the period of the deterioration of incumbents-people relation in Kurdistan. Of course, this anti-ruling parties mass movement was and is not a matter of the decrease of Kurdish people’s trust in self-rule. In contrast, it came from the people’s belief that there could be a better form of government and more effective institutions. In short, the public wanted to punish the rulers but not the rule. Here, the public desire to a new political faces comes into the existence. The last election provided this sort of need. The rise of opposition lists like Goran made the people to have belief and satisfaction that democracy can yield. The participation of about 75% turnout of eligible voters and gaining more than 25% of votes by new opposition groups like Goran are proofs to what is said. Of course, opposition group of Goran has not come to power due to several factors which I have no space to discus them here, but hopefully it will represent the voices of at least 25% of Kurdistan’s population and it means a lot in term of channeling people’s demand through democratic institutions.

To sum up, I can make the point that the rise of political groups like Goran list has made a great service for the nascent democratic experiment in Kurdistan as it provided a political alternative for channeling the people’s discontent which eventually contributes to political stability and mass rest in Kurdistan Region.

Aso Ali is a political researcher at the University of Kurdistan, Arbil – Kurdistan