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Megan Connelly is a Non-Resident Fellow at IRIS. She was also a fellow of the Jaeckle Center for Law, Democracy, and Governance at University at Buffalo. Her current research focuses on the legal history of local governments in the Kurdistan Region and their place within Iraq’s federal framework. Megan has previously published articles on Kurdistan Region law and political institutions for Sada and the Middle East Institute. She holds a Juris Doctor from SUNY University at Buffalo. Follow her on Twitter @meganconnelly48.
Games without Frontiers: Renegotiating the Boundaries of Power in Iraqi Kurdistan
Over the past year, intensifying political and economic conflicts between the Kurdistan Region’s two hegemonic parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have challenged the legal and institutional order in which the Kurdistan Regional Government operates. A new generation of leadership within the parties, a fraught relationship with the federal government, and a prolonged economic crisis have strained the relationship between the two parties to its breaking point.
Breaking each other’s fingers: Kurdish parties nervously watch Baghdad — and one another
Since early October, the southern provinces of Iraq have been consumed by protests and strikes. While ruthlessly attempting to suppress protests, the Iraqi government has promised legal and political reforms. Yet some of the Kurdistan Region-Iraq’s elites are suspicious that the government’s reform agenda is a “conspiracy” against Kurdish entitlements masquerading as a good faith effort to placate the protestors. The region’s hegemonic parties are concerned that legal, constitutional, and procedural reforms may overhaul the institutions that guarantee their positions of influence in the federal government and secure their territorial claims.
While much of the international dialogue concerning the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s independence referendum has concerned will of “Kurdish people,” the media and international community have ignored the fact that the Kurds themselves are deeply divided on the issue.
