Where are the Kurds in all this?

The Kurdish political bloc has always been described as the “king maker” for forming government in Iraq. The two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, together with two Islamist movements, contest the elections under a unified list, which would guarantee them more than fifty seats. This is no longer the case, since the decision of the former Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani to hold a referendum for independence from Iraq in October 2017, which resulted in the Kurds losing all of their gains over the last 15 years. In addition to Baghdad, both Turkey and Iran imposed embargoes on the Region, forcing it to relinquish control of its border crossings and airports to federal authorities. Federal government forces then reestablished control over disputed areas that Kurdish forces had spread across since the fall of the Saddam regime. This included Kirkuk’s oil-rich regions and parts of the Diyala governorate adjacent to Baghdad which Kurdish forces had gained control over while federal forces were fighting ISIS.

This collapse of cohesion within Kurdistan added to the wave of popular resentment against prevailing corruption in the region – exceeding that of the federal government – and against the deterioration of living standards of the population. This has seen increasing intensity in reciprocal accusations among parties as well as splits and new formations, with new parties entering the elections as independent.