The shifting balance of power in Iraqi Kurdistan: The struggle for democracy with uninstitutionalized governance

In September 2013 the fourth elections of the Kurdistan Parliament, a legislative assembly of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, were conducted. During the election campaigns, Kurdistan’s internal affairs dominated the public discussion entirely, reflecting the situation that the highly autonomous status was no longer challenged, even though the boundaries of the region were not settled with the Iraqi government. The two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had dominated the political order since the beginning of autonomy in the early 1990s; however, the election results in 2013 clearly showed that the bipartisan era was ending. The opposition Gorran surged to second in the elections and thereby became one of the leading parties in Kurdistan. The negotiation for the formation of the eighth Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) faced tremendous difficulties because the KRG has never been fully institutionalized as an administrative organization. Still under the strong influence of the two parties; this has caused friction since the basis of democracy is that power should rotate according to election results.