![Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq. Photo: Perleman](https://i0.wp.com/gagrule.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Iraqi-Kurdistan-Parliament-Speaker-Yusuf-Mohammed-2015-photoPerleman.jpg?resize=450%2C360)
Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq. Photo: Perleman
SULAIMANI, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— The current ruling Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP has committed a coup in the region and the legitimacy of the current leadership is questionable, Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq said.
“This was undoubtedly a coup d’états committed by forces that did not have the legal basis for this that are set out in the work of juridical institutes. This is a coup,” Sadiq told RIA Novosti in an interview.
Sadiq said the KDP also forced four ministers from power and this is the reason the current Cabinet of Ministers is “very politicized and that its structure depends exclusively on the demands of a single party.”
“The question arises on the legitimacy of the government. When the work of the parliament is halted, the parliament no longer fulfills its responsibilities and there is no power that can control the work of the government. If the parliament is run out, it isn’t fulfilling its duties and all of the other institutes in the country also become illegitimate,” Sadiq said.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani’s term ended in 2015 after extending first terms and he has no right to run for the position again, Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament Speaker said.
“Mr. Barzani has ended his two terms as the president of the region in 2013 and in 2013 there should have been elections for a new president of the region, but Mr. Barzani refused to step down from his position and to put pressure on the last parliament to extend his term two more years, and that two more years was extended and ended on 19 of August last year,” Sadiq told RIA Novosti in an interview.
He said that an amendment to the law allowed Barzani to remain in power for another two years, after which the president should have relinquished his powers.
“The amendment [to the] law that allowed Mr. Barzani to be president of the region two more years specified that he cannot extend that position any longer and that ended on 19th of August, 2015. After that he was not willing to step down and now he’s linking his position in declaring independent Kurdistan. He’s stating that he’s staying in his position until declaring the independence of Kurdistan and he is not willing to negotiate with other political parties in parliament to deal with the issue and he is also not willing to negotiate on that,” Sadiq said.
The crisis erupted after Massoud Barzani, whose term as Kurdistan President ended on August 20, 2015 but refused to step down and remains unofficially in office. According to the law in Kurdistan, Barzani cannot run for presidency anymore. The KDP party insists that Barzani should remain president of the region.
Barzani first won office in June 2005. The Kurdish region’s presidency is technically limited to two four-year terms, but in 2013 he extended his second term by two years in a deal between his KDP, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK — the two main Kurdish political parties.
The parliament speaker Sadiq from Gorran Movement was prevented from entering Erbil city on October 11, 2015. Since then Kurdistan parliament parliament has been suspended.
Kurdistan PM Nechirvan Barzani has removed four members of his cabinet from the Change (Gorran) Movement on October 13, 2015. The expelled ministers were replaced on October 28, 2015 with KDP politicians.
The Gorran Movement accused the KDP of a monopoly all government’s positions in Erbil, and it does not believe in the principles of true partnership and and peaceful transfer of power.
Barzani told al-monitor on March 23, 2016 “The day we have an independent Kurdistan, I will cease to be the president of that Kurdistan”
Analysts and some Kurdish politicians accuse KDP party of using the self-determination issue as means to stay in power and monopoly it.
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