Asian Affairs

ISSN: 0306-8374 (Print) 1477-1500 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raaf20

IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE

REFERENDUM: THE KDP’S PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
MOTIVES

Hawre Hasan Hama

To cite this article: Hawre Hasan Hama (2020): IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE
REFERENDUM: THE KDP’S PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MOTIVES, Asian Affairs, DOI:
10.1080/03068374.2019.1706338

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2019.1706338

Published online: 17 Jan 2020.

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 Asian Affairs, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2019.1706338

IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE

REFERENDUM: THE KDP’S PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
MOTIVES
HAWRE HASAN HAMA

Hawre Hasan Hama is a lecturer at the University of Sulaimani, College of

Political Science, and also visiting lecturer at Ishik University, Inter-
national Relations and Diplomacy department. Email: hawre.faraj@
univsul.edu.iq

Introduction
Before the holding of the 2017 Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum,
the political landscape in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq was characterised
by political stalemate, economic crisis, the proroguing of parliament by
the KDP and strained relations between the different political parties in
the region.1

A primary dispute between the parties during this period was over the pre-
sidency. In the run-up to the official end of the presidential term of the
former President of the Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, on 20
August 2015, deep divisions arose between the Kurdish political
parties. The Gorran Movement, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), and the Kurdistan Islamic
Group (Komal) demanded a change to the Kurdistan Region’s political
system from a presidential to a parliamentary model. To achieve this,
the parties rejected granting an extension to Barzani’s presidential term.
Opposing this position was the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
which supported a presidential political system for the Kurdistan
Region and rejected amending the Kurdistan Region’s Presidential Law
to prevent Barzani being awarded another presidential term. After the
parties failed to reach a settlement inside and outside of the Kurdistan par-
liament to resolve the deadlock, a parliamentary bill that was moved on
19 August 2015 to amend the Kurdistan Region’s Presidential Law
also failed to pass as the session was not quorate. As a result, the
© 2020 The Royal Society for Asian Affairs
2 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

attempt to amend the Presidential Law was postponed indefinitely, and

Barzani continued to serve as President outside of his term.2

Furthermore, during the same period relations between the Kurdistan

Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi Federal Government were
at their worst level since 2003. This was despite both sides being
allies in the war against the Islamic State.3 Their main disputes
included the stalled negotiations over the final settlement of the dis-
puted Iraqi territories (primarily in the regions of Kirkuk, Erbil and
Nineveh governorates), the withholding of the KRG portion of the
Iraq budget, and the issue of the Kurdish armed forces (Peshmerga).4
According to the 2005 Iraqi constitution, the Iraqi Federal Government
was obliged to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution by
November 2007. Article 140 required the Iraqi Federal Government
to have taken the necessary steps (census and referendum) to resolve
the status of the disputed Iraqi territories. This would have afforded
the people of these territories to have a say over their administrative
future, whether they wanted to remain subject to the Iraqi Federal Gov-
ernment or the KRG. However, the Iraqi Federal Government had
failed to deliver on this constitutional article within the required
time-scale.5 Moreover, in 2014, Nuri Al-Maliki, the then Iraqi Prime
Minister, ordered that the Federal Government stop sending the Kurdi-
stan Region of Iraq’s portion of the Iraqi budget, which the region had
been receiving on a monthly basis since the collapse of the former
Iraqi regime in 2003.6

What is more, officials in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq accused the Iraqi
Federal Government of not treating the Kurdish Peshmerga as a com-
ponent of the Iraqi military as required by the Iraqi constitution, and
also withholding their salaries.7 In 2015, KRG faced a deep economic
crisis as a result of Nuri Al-Maliki’s actions. The crisis was further com-
pounded by the oil price crash and the war against the Islamic State.8 On
its part, rather than implementing reforms to root out corruption, the KRG
delayed the payment of state-sector salaries, and used illegal means to
reduce significantly (more than 50 per cent cuts) the wages of state
sector workers. As a result, dissatisfaction against the government
spread across the Kurdistan Region, in particular from state-sector
employees. This dissatisfaction manifested itself in daily protests in
cities and towns across the region.9

In this climate, and following on from the KDP’s proroguing of parlia-

ment and Barzani’s continuation of his expired presidential term, on 7
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 3

June 201710 15 Kurdish political parties met and decided to hold an inde-
pendence referendum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on 25 September
2017.11 The referendum went ahead as planned, and 92.7 per cent of
the voters approved the call for independence.12 The central argument
of this paper is that the KDP and its leader, Massoud Barzani, had a
number of public and private motivations for holding the referendum.
This article discusses what those motivations were.

The public motives for holding an independence referendum

Barzani’s public statements in the independence referendum campaign
made clear that he had two central public motivations for holding the poll.

First, he was motivated by the desire for the Kurdistan Region to separate
from Iraq and become an independent state. The fact that the Iraqi gov-
ernment had violated the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional rights on
many occasions since 2003 led Barzani to believe that the best resolution
was for the Iraqi Kurds to seek independence. Prior to the vote, KRG
relations with the Iraqi central government had reached a stalemate.13
A few days before the vote, the KRG released a report outlining all of
Baghdad’s constitutional violations against the Region. The report
argued that Iraq had failed to become a real federal state, and that well
over a decade from the Iraqi constitution’s ratification, there was still
no second chamber to protect the rights of regions and provinces. Nor
had a Supreme Court been established with standing to adjudicate consti-
tutional disputes. Without this chamber and a valid supreme court, it
claimed, Iraq was in essence a Shi’ite Arab sectarian state. The KRG
claimed that the promise of power-sharing arrangements within the
federal agencies had been broken by various Iraqi governments. More-
over, the KRG said the federal government had never paid KRG its con-
stitutionally mandated portion of oil and gas incomes from the oilfields in
production before October 2015. While the government in Baghdad paid
salaries and services in Islamic-State occupied Mosul, it refused to make
any payments to the KRG.14 The KRG also complained of Baghdad
failing properly to recognise the Peshmerga and of withholding salary
payments to it, as discussed above, and also the failure to honour the
requirement of article 140 of the constitution to hold a referendum on
the disputed territories. Thus, one of Barzani’s undoubted public motiv-
ations was to secede from the Iraqi state. In one of his statements Barzani
said:
4 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

Due to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi political leadership’s exclusive policies,
violations of the constitution, and ignoring the rights and demands of the people of
Kurdistan […] we reach the conclusion that we have to return to our people’s
opinion and will, and let them decide on their future.15

In another statement, Barzani revealed his intention for independence

directly and publicly aired his frustration at the Iraqi Federal Govern-
ment’s sidelining of the Iraqi Kurds. He claimed that in 2003 Kurdistan
was an independent state. “We went to Baghdad to create a democratic
and federal Iraq. I now admit that in 2003, we made a great mistake by
returning to Baghdad with good intentions and good hearts. That is
why we should not be criticised; today, we want to separate from Iraq
because Baghdad rejected friendship and partnership with us.”16
Additionally, Barzani states: “We tried all the alternatives to indepen-
dence, but none succeeded. Today we believe that Kurdish independence
is a solution to the problems we face; it is medicine for our pains”.17

Whilst it is clear from Barzani’s statements that Kurdish independence

was one of the leading public motivations for holding the independence
referendum, the idea that this was Barzani’s primary motivation is a belief
that is held primarily by supporters of the KDP and Barzani. There are a
number of factors that undermine the idea that Barzani held the referen-
dum solely to seek independence from Iraq. To begin with, when the
referendum was called, it was decided that the poll would be legally
non-binding. This meant that the Kurdish government would not be
legally obliged to implement the result of the referendum. As a result,
the vote would offer the Kurdish leadership the opportunity to use the
vote result to negotiate their future relationship with the Iraqi
government.18

Secondly, the decision to hold the referendum was a unilateral decision

by the KRG without consent from the parent state. This called into ques-
tion the legitimacy of the referendum amongst the international commu-
nity, and as a result the vote was not generally recognised by it.19 In
particular, Iraq’s neighbouring states were strongly against the holding
of the independence referendum and were quick to reject the outcome
of the poll. The Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey, who are both neigh-
bouring states of the KRG and Iraq, and who each host significant
Kurdish populations of their own, view any move towards a Kurdish
independence in Iraq as a serious threat to national security. Both states
fear that success in Iraqi Kurdistan would motivate their Kurdish popu-
lations to seek the same outcome. The Islamic Republic of Iran believed
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 5

that if an independent Kurdish state were to form in the North of Iraq,

then that state would naturally be a supporter of separatism in Iranian
Kurdistan. This has led many Iranian officials to view independence in
Iraqi Kurdistan as the ‘second Israel’. It is for these reasons that the Ira-
nians were prepared to use all the tools at their disposal to attack the refer-
endum result.20 Turkey, the country that hosts the largest Kurdish
population, made it clear that the Iraqi Kurdish referendum and Iraqi
Kurdish independence is a threat to the national security of the Turkish
state and this being the case they were also prepared to do anything
required to prevent Iraqi Kurdish independence. In a press conference,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, said that Kurdish indepen-
dence was unacceptable to his country and that this was a “matter of sur-
vival”.21 For a landlocked region like Iraqi Kurdistan, the support of the
neighbouring countries for independence is essential, since the Kurdistan
Region is not self-sufficient and is highly dependent on imports from
Turkey and Iran in order to sustain its basic needs.22

Finally, other regional and international states were also against the
holding of the poll and rejected the outcome. European nations and the
United States, who were largely allies of the Iraqi Kurds, were not pre-
pared to accept the referendum result. Moreover, they also turned their
back on the Kurdistan Region when the Iraqi Federal Government
attacked long-held Kurdish positions on 16 October 2017, after the
pro-independence result in the referendum.23 Since Barzani did not
take into consideration the obvious objections of Iraq itself, the neigh-
bouring states and the international powers when deciding to hold the
referendum, it is clear that he could not have really been motivated to
hold the poll with the practical goal of securing Kurdish independence;
the goal was unrealistic, given these objections.

The second public motivation for holding the referendum was to gain
greater autonomy vis-à-vis Baghdad. The failure of the Iraqi army in con-
fronting the Islamic State in June 2014 gave the Kurdish Peshmerga
forces an opportunity to seize the disputed Iraqi territories.24 Before
June 2014 these territories were jointly protected by the Iraqi army and
the Peshmerga forces. The withdrawal of the Iraqi Army from the dis-
puted territories prompted Barzani to issue an executive order for the
Kurdish Peshmerga to take control of the territories in Kirkuk, Toozkhur-
matu, the Mosul plains, Makhmour, Shangal, and the other territories that
the Iraqi army had left to the Islamic State.25 Following these events,
Barzani announced on 26 June 2014 in Kirkuk: “we were trying to
implement article 140, but this article has been implemented
6 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

automatically”.26 With this, the decision by Barzani to extend the scope

of the referendum to include the disputed Iraqi territories was an attempt
to accelerate the process of these territories returning to Kurdish hands.27
It is important to note, that the disputed Iraqi territories made up 51 per
cent of the land controlled by the KRG. In a speech Barzani openly
reveals his motivation in this regard when he stated:
I swear by God if I am certain about the status quo, we would have left the project
of independence to the next generation. However, I fear, and I am sure that when
the Islamic State is defeated Baghdad will return and demand that we leave Kha-
naqin, Kirkuk, Shingal and Makhmour and tell us that we must go back to the
2003 border.

Similarly, in another statement Barzani said: “After the IS war, Baghdad

wants us to go back to the green line [referring to the line that separated
Peshmerga from the army of Saddam before 2003], in order to attack
Erbil with mortars […] The culture of resorting to military force to
resolve the Kurdish issue has not changed in Baghdad, after decades of
genocide against Kurds at the hands of the Iraqi government”.28 There-
fore, one of Barzani’s main drivers for holding the Independence referen-
dum was the fear of losing control of the Iraqi disputed territories.
Retaining Kurdish control of the territories has three primary advantages.
First, at the government level, these Territories, in particular, Kirkuk,
were rich in oil and made up 20 per cent of Iraq’s total reserves.29 The
continuation of Kurdish administration over these territories would
present a significant income to the KRG. According to some sources,
60 per cent of the KRG’s total oil exports between 2014 and 2017
came from the Kirkuk oil fields.30 Therefore the KRG should have
attempted to protect their hold on Kirkuk, since it was economically
essential for the KRG’s survival.

Second, at the party level, the KDP also had party-specific motivations
for holding the referendum in Kirkuk and the other disputed territories
to protect Kurdish control over the territories. From 2003 to 2014
Kirkuk was under the political and military influence of the PUK, the
KDP’s historic rival. The KDP was discontented with the PUK influence
in Kirkuk. The collapse of the Iraqi Army in June 2014 presented the
KDP’s military forces with the opportunity to enter Kirkuk. This oppor-
tunity allowed the KDP to have a significant presence in Kirkuk between
2014 until it was ousted by the Iraqi army on 16 October 2017, and to
correct the imbalance of power between it and the PUK in Kirkuk. The
KDP used the opportunity to take military control of two major oil
fields in Kirkuk, the Havana and Bai Hassan fields. This new reality
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 7

showed the KDP to have influence in Kirkuk and allowed it to challenge

that of the PUK.

Third, on the nationalistic level, the return of Kirkuk and the disputed ter-
ritories to the Kurdistan Region was deeply connected to issues of
Kurdish identity. For over a century the Iraqi Kurds had been in conflict
with successive Iraqi governments over these territories. The Iraqi Kurds
argue that the disputed territories are Kurdish territories and not Iraqi. The
return of these territories to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq would allow the
Iraqi Kurds to gain greater autonomy. Moreover, if the Kurdish leader-
ship had managed to maintain control of these territories and prevent
the Iraqi government from retaking control than this success would
have been read as a significant win for the Kurdish nation. Furthermore,
such success would have provided the justification required by the
Kurdish leadership to continue governing in the region and would have
made any future challenge to its leadership redundant, even if this were
through democratic means.

The Iraqi Kurdish leadership believed it could stamp the KRG’s authority
on Kirkuk and the Iraqi disputed territories after the referendum for three
reasons. First, the Kurdish leadership, especially Barzani, believed that
the support the Iraqi Kurds had received from the international commu-
nity after the massacre of its Yezidi population on 8 August 2014
would continue. Furthermore, they believed that if the Iraqi Federal gov-
ernment were to attack the Iraqi Kurdish forces following the referendum,
then the international community would support the Kurds and not the
Iranian-backed Iraqi government, and if not they would at least prevent
the Iraqi government from doing so. Nechirvan Barzani, the then Prime
Minister of the KRG, said in an interview with Fox News following
the Iraqi military attacks: “Over 1,846 Peshmerga soldiers have sacrificed
their lives and more than 10,000 were wounded fighting ISIS … There-
fore, the Kurdish people were expecting that when a threat comes in, the
U.S. would stand by them. They were not expecting that American tanks
given to the Iraq government would be used against them by the Popular
Mobilization Units”. Additionally, he said that: “There was disappoint-
ment among the Kurdish people: the people of Kurdistan have had
high expectations from the United States and they believe that the
values the U.S. cherishes, we also cherish”.31 In the same way, Barzani
said that: “We thought the people who were verbally telling us they
were our friends, and would support us, that they would have supported
us or if not stay silent [neutral] … Not only did they not support the
8 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

Peshmerga, but the Peshmerga is getting martyred with their weapons,

and they were looking without doing anything”.32

Second, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership trusted the Kurdish Peshmerga to

defend the disputed Iraqi territories from advancing Iraqi forces. The
Kurdish leadership believed the size of the Peshmerga would tip the
balance in their favour. Since 2003, the size of the Peshmerga had
swollen as a result of the post-2003 Kurdish economic boom. The Iraqi
Kurdish government used this period and their share of the annual Iraqi
budget (17 per cent) to recruit significant numbers of new Peshmerga.
As a result, the size of the Kurdish Peshmerga had more than doubled
between 2003 and 2014.33 Consequently, the Kurdish leadership believed
the Peshmerga forces were significant enough in size to hold off any
attack on the Iraqi disputed territories by the Iraqi forces, in the same
manner that they had done against the Islamic State.

The private motives for holding an independence referendum

Barzani and the KDP had two private motivations for holding the inde-
pendence referendum. First, they were motivated by the desire to keep
Barzani in post as the President of the Kurdistan Region, and to maintain
the KDP’s hegemony in the Kurdistan Region. Before the decision was
taken by the KDP to hold the referendum, the party’s political position
as the Kurdistan Region’s dominant party was under threat. The KDP’s
rivals in the Kurdistan Region were challenging the party’s dominance
through the rhetoric of defending and strengthening the Kurdistan
Region’s democracy against the KDP’s increasingly authoritarian and
dictatorial advances on the region’s political institutions.

During this period, as mentioned above, Barzani’s presidential term had

expired, and he remained in post illegitimately.34 Barzani served for two
consecutive terms as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s President between
2005 and 2013. In 2013, Barzani’s term as President expired.
However, an agreement between the KDP and the PUK, the two domi-
nant political parties in the Kurdistan Region, allowed Barzani to serve
for a further two years through parliamentary consent.35 This agreement
was challenged at the time by the Gorran Movement, the largest opposi-
tion force in the Kurdish parliament, describing the move as illegal.36
This is because the Kurdistan Region’s draft constitution and also the pre-
sidential law only allowed for a president to serve for two terms, with no
space for an extension.37 This being the case, Barzani’s term as the
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 9

Kurdistan Region’s President de jure expired on 20th August 2015. This

moment was chosen for a joint push in parliament by the Gorran Move-
ment, the PUK, KIU and the Komal to change the Kurdistan Region’s
political system from a presidential system to a parliamentary one.
These parties aimed to achieve this through a reform of the Region’s pre-
sidential law, which would see the post of President being decided on by
parliament and not a public vote. Moreover, the reforms were intended to
make the position of President an honorary one and to prevent Barzani
from standing for the post again.38

However, the KDP described the move as a failed attempt to subvert the
democratic will of the Kurdish people by external powers. Challenging
this move, Barzani demanded the political parties reach a consensus on
the post of President before 20 August 2015, when he was due to stand
down. Barzani also said if the crisis over the post of President were not
resolved between the political parties, then the matter should be resolved
by public vote. The political parties were unable to reach agreement in
extra-parliamentary negotiation. Thus, the Kurdistan parliament con-
vened on 19 August 2015 with the intention reforming the Region’s pre-
sidential law. However, the sitting was prevented from going ahead as
KDP members and some from the KIU boycotted the session, preventing
a quorum, as mentioned above. As a result, the session was postponed,
and Barzani decided to remain in post illegitimately beyond the expira-
tion of his term.39 On 12 October 2015, the security forces loyal to the
KDP prevented the head of the Kurdistan parliament, a Gorran candidate,
from returning to Erbil from Sulaymaniayah, where his office was
located. This move by the KDP essentially prorogued the Kurdish parlia-
ment indefinitely. Following this event, the Gorran ministers that were
serving in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s coalition government were
illegally sacked by the KDP and expelled from Erbil.40 In response, the
Gorran Movement and the PUK signed a political agreement in May
2016. The agreement politically threatened the KDP’s hegemony in the
Kurdistan Region.41

The first article of the agreement said that: “Both sides will establish a
coalition block in the Iraqi Parliament and the Kurdistan Parliament as
well as provincial councils to strengthen legal and political cooperation”.
This move meant that together Gorran and the PUK would command 42
parliamentary seats making their coalition the largest in the Kurdish par-
liament, challenging the KDP’s 38 seats out of a total of 111 seats. What
is more, the second article in the agreement outlined the formation of a
shared list between Gorran and the PUK for upcoming elections in Iraq
10 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

and the Kurdistan Region. In article 5 of the agreement both sides

demanded the Kurdistan parliament be reopened without any precondi-
tions. Perhaps more importantly, both sides demanded decentralisation
of powers from the KRG to the provincial councils, challenging the
KDP’s attempts to centralise power in the region. The agreement ulti-
mately challenged the KDP’s democratic credentials, as it was founded
on the notion that democracy and the peaceful changeover of power in
the Kurdistan Region of Iraq be respected. Moreover, the agreement
pushed for these democratic principles to be enshrined in a redrafting
of the Region’s draft constitution. The two sides further challenged the
KDP, as the agreement made public a common commitment to a parlia-
mentary system for the region.42

The agreement set alarm bells ringing in the KDP, which viewed the
agreement as a challenge to their party’s power and status in Kurdish
society. This being the case, the KDP refused to meet with representatives
from the two parties, who wished to discuss the multiple crises that faced
the region. The day after the agreement was signed by the PUK and the
Gorran Movement, the KDP released a statement expressing its dissatis-
faction with the agreement. The leadership of the KDP released a state-
ment saying, “The agreement will deepen the differences and
disagreements in the Region”. They also explained that the agreement
would further complicate matters and not serve the interests of the Kurdi-
stan region’s population. Further to this, the KDP made clear that they
would not allow the Gorran Movement to enter the KRG until after
new elections were held.

It was clear that the agreement between the PUK and Gorran had unsettled
the KDP.43 In response to the rhetoric of democracy that was being used by
Barzani’s opponents, in 2016 Barzani reopened the question of Kurdish
independence and the holding of a Kurdish referendum.44 To Barzani
and the KDP, the issue of Kurdish independence outweighed the issue
of democracy and active democratic institutions. The evidence for this
was clear when Barzani sidelined the Region’s democratic institutions
and decided independently to hold the referendum. Further to this,
Barzani said “If we wait and wait for solutions, if we wait until the
region is completely stable then we will have to wait for a very long
time”. Barzani has said that he views the creation of a Kurdish state in
the same fashion as he sees the building of a house; he believes that
Kurdish democracy can only begin when the Kurdish state has been
built: “statehood is like building a new house, you may have visions for
the design of the completed house, but you cannot achieve those visions
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 11

until the foundations of the house are built”.45 For Barzani the question of
the interior design of the house is irrelevant until the house is built. In other
words, while he believes in democracy for Kurdistan, he will not subscribe
to it until the Kurdish state is achieved. He believes that the issues of
democracy that arose between 2014 and 2017 were a symptom of the
fact that the Kurds were still in need of an independent state.

A disregard for democracy and democratic principles are clear in Barza-

ni’s statements about Kurdish independence and the Kurdish referendum.
The clearest example is that Barzani decided to hold the referendum at a
time when he himself had caused the prorogation of the Kurdistan Parlia-
ment. He only decided to seek parliamentary approval when his
opponents pressured him into reopening parliament. Barzani used nation-
alist sentiment from the referendum to force his opponents to support the
KDP’s policies and give up on their firm pursuit of democratisation.46 All
of the political parties in the region except the Gorran Movement and the
Komal took part in Barzani’s meeting on 7 June 2017 to decide on the
referendum. It is important to note that at the time of the meeting,
Barzani had no legal legitimacy to decide on the referendum.

The Gorran Movement and the Komal ultimately accepted the holding of
the referendum in the days leading up to the vote and called on their sup-
porters to vote “yes”.47 Barzani’s opponents backed the referendum for
two reasons. First, the referendum was a nationalist issue, and as a
result, it was not possible for Barzani’s opponents to stand against the
poll as they feared they would be branded as being against Kurdish inde-
pendence. Barzani succeeded in framing the referendum as a means of
getting to the ultimate aim of achieving Kurdish independence.48 By pre-
senting this image, it forced his opponents into a corner, whereby they
were unable to challenge the referendum without also challenging
Kurdish independence. Therefore, if the other parties had challenged
Barzani, it would have cost them at the ballot box. Second, all of the
Kurdish political parties have subscribed to Kurdish independence in
their respective manifestos and were obliged to support the vote. There-
fore, the political parties in the Iraqi Kurdistan that opposed Barzani were
forced to support the holding of the referendum and neglect their own
policies of further democratisation in the Kurdistan Region through the
changing of the Kurdistan Region’s political system.49 For the KDP,
they were able to use this avenue to maintain their hegemony over
Kurdish politics and weaken their opponents. What is more, the indepen-
dence referendum allowed space for Barzani to remain in post, as he had
made clear through the campaigning period that he would step down after
12 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

Kurdistan became independent, no matter how long that took. Barzani’s

position in this regard was clear when in March 2016 he said: “On the day
that we declare independence I will resign from my post”.50 Thus,
Barzani tied his presidency to Kurdish independence. As a result, any
calls for his resignation would have been read as a call against the
Kurdish referendum. The meeting between the different political parties
and Barzani on 7 June 2017 was evidence that the political parties no
longer took issue with the legal legitimacy of Barzani as President. There-
fore, it can be argued that the independence referendum was a remedy for
two central problems of the KDP. It maintained the democratic reputation
of the party and also resolved the issue of Barzani’s legitimacy without
the need for the KDP to make any compromises.

The second private motivation of Barzani and the KDP was to steer public
opinion away from the internal crises of the region and towards issues of
nationalism. Along with the internal political crisis and the deep disagree-
ments between the political parties in the Kurdistan region, the region was
also in the grips of a fiscal and economic crisis that had begun in 2015. The
KRG was unable to pay the salaries of state sector salaries. As a remedy the
government illegally reduced their salaries by more than half.51 The KDP
tied the financial and economic crisis to the falling price of oil internation-
ally, the non-payment of the KRG’s share of the Iraqi budget by the Iraqi
central government, the ongoing war against the Islamic State and the econ-
omic burden of hosting 1.5 million Iraqis who had sought refuge in the Kur-
distan Region.52 However, the opposition parties claimed that the financial
and economic crisis was the result of poor governance and financial mis-
management by the KDP. In particular, the opposition forces campaigned
that the financial and economic crisis was the result of the KDP-led initiat-
ive to sell oil to international markets independently of the Iraqi Federal
Government. They argued it was this policy that forced the Iraqi govern-
ment to stop paying the KRG its share of the Iraqi budget. Furthermore,
the opposition parties argued that the corruption and lack of transparency
that was prevalent in the region’s oil sales was a factor that worsened the
crisis. As a result, during the run-up to the Kurdistan Region’s referendum
the KRG, led by the KDP, was under significant pressure from the public.53
These pressures played out in the form of daily public protests across the
region.54 During this period public anger reached a point where there
were widespread calls for uprisings against the government.55

At the beginning of 2016, Barzani began openly discussing the possibility

of holding a referendum, playing on the nationalist sentiments of Kurds
who had long-held desires for independence. During this period,
 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 13

Barzani began markedly increasing his nationalist rhetoric against the

Iraqi state. In one statement Barzani accused the Iraqi Federal Govern-
ment of being responsible for the political and economic ills that had
befallen the Kurdistan Region. Barzani juxtaposed the crimes of the
former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, for example the chemical
bombardments at Halabja, with the current financial and economic
crisis to move public opinion in his favour. Just as emotively, Barzani
likened the non-payment of the Kurdistan region’s budget to the previous
regime’s Anfal Campaigns of the 1980s, which killed around 100,000
innocent Kurds. For example, he described the non-payment of the
Kurdish portion of the Iraqi budget in this way:
No crime was worse than the crime when Baghdad cut the source of livelihood for
the population of Kurdistan, including the milk of children. That is a crime no less
than the chemical bombardment and the Anfal.56

By juxtaposing the chemical bombardments at Halabja and the Anfal cam-

paign with the non-payment of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s share of the
Iraqi budget, Barzani was able distract public opinion away from the fun-
damental reasons behind the Kurdistan region’s political and economic
crises. For this reason, in 2017 public gatherings in support of Kurdish
independence and the holding of a Kurdish referendum took the place of
the anti-government protests of 2015 and 2016. However, it should be
noted that there is a weakness in this argument, since the KDP was
under less pressure from the protests as they were concentrated in the
PUK-dominated zone of influence.57 Furthermore, the KRG had in pre-
vious years been under even more pressure from the public to reform
and was able to quell those protests. On 17 February to 21 April 2011
there were large daily protests, where thousands of Iraqi Kurds in Sulaima-
nia, inspired by the Arab Spring protests, spilled on to the streets and
demanded radical reforms. However, the KRG was able to crush the pro-
tests without implementing any reforms.58 Therefore, the desire to shift
public opinion away from the multiple internal crises to the nationalist
question of independence should not be viewed as a central, but rather a
minor motivation of Barzani and the KDP.

Conclusion
Despite the pressures from opposition parties, the Iraqi Federal Govern-
ment, neighbouring states, and also global powers, President Barzani
decided to hold the independence referendum in September 2017. It is
clear that Barzani and his ruling party had both public and private
14 IRAQI KURDISTAN’S 2017 INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

motivations for holding the referendum. Barzani’s public speeches in the

run-up to the referendum revealed two public motivations of the Kurdish
leadership: to declare the creation of an independent Kurdish State, and to
gain greater autonomy for Kurdistan Region vis-à-vis Baghdad. Given
the context of the referendum and the fact that it had little internal and
international support, the declaration of Kurdish independence could
not have been a primary motivation of the Kurdish leadership, as they
must have known the improbability of such a move.

The private motivations for holding the independence poll included the
KDP’s need to maintain its hegemony in Kurdish politics, the desire to con-
tinue Barzani’s presidency indefinitely, and the need to shift public opinion
away from the political and economic failures of the Kurdish leadership.
By portraying the independence referendum as a nationalist project,
which they gambled was more important to the people of Kurdistan than
the issues of democracy and democratic institutions, Barzani was able to
weaken the opposition arguments for increased democratisation. The
benefit of this analysis of the motivations for holding the Kurdish indepen-
dence referendum, classifying them into public and private, is that it offers
a much clearer picture of why the Kurdish leadership decided to hold the
referendum. Moreover, it allows for a fuller image to emerge of the
views of the leadership and the opposition on the referendum. The
public motivations would invite support of the view of the KDP, while
the private motivations the view of the Kurdish opposition.

NOTES

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pur Journal of International Relations Vol. 19. Issue 2 (2015): 137–158.
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7. ‘The Constitutional Case for Kurdistan’s Independence’, op. cit.

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