AIRSS

Attitudes towards the two main parties within the region were different from how the issue was viewed from the rest of Iraq.  Low-key political research into actual perceptions and attitudes had been undertaken and the results were instructive.

Massoud and Jalal were like two hostile brothers who would never agree – even though they had stopped any serious fighting since 1996 they had no intention of forming a genuinely united front.  Their power bases were quite different.  Jalal had the support of the 60-70% of the people – including people in Erbil (often overlooked after the PUK’s expulsion in 1996) – but Massoud’s power base did not go much beyond his own tribe.  This was largely due to the poor public services provided by the KDP and rapacity of the party – all businesses however small had to pay 50% of its profits to the KDP hierarchy otherwise they were not allowed to operate.  Dohuk enjoyed a better economic standard as well as better relations with Massoud. Hoever, Suleimaniyah was better managed and enjoyed much tighter security but the domination of the PUK party membership was deeply resented.

Jalal ostensibly uses more democratic methods of governing than Massoud but in fact he is more dictatorial.  Lacking any tribal base he is heavily dependent on the party system and desperate to establish a new party alignment within Iraq.  It is more important for him to ensure that the PUK is awarded the most senior offices possible in the new government.  These aspirations were not deemed realistic by other Kurds.  The Coalition summoned a group of independent Kurdish leaders to a hotel in Sulaimaniyah and asked whether they would support either of the two leaders as the next President.  The response was cool: although they were very well experienced and had the largest party organizations in Iraq, they could represent only the Kurds, not the whole of Iraq and any such appointment would not be forgiven by the Arabs.