Three provinces, only three, voted September 21st: Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dahuk. It took 11 days to count the vote? That's really sad and not a vote of confidence for when Iraq holds parliamentary elections in all 18 provinces next year (if they take place).
Going into the election, there were two dominant parties: the KDP, headed by KRG President Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Headed by whom? Supposedly headed by Iraq's President, the Kurd Jalal Talabani.
Last December, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently.
He can't lead the party, he can't even lead the country. The only reason he shouldn't be replaced as President of Iraq is possibly that the new elections (parliamentary) early next year (if they happen) would result in a new president. Jalal argued with the US government when they begged him, in 2010, to take another position and allow Ayad Allawi to be president. Jalal said no for many reasons including (a) the US government's really not supposed to be in charge of the Iraqi elections (though that hasn't stopped them), (b) Allawi is a Shi'ite and Jalal (and many others) contend a Kurd must be in a high profile post and (c) he's a big, fat liar. Jalal (like Nouri) had announced he wouldn't seek a second term yet in 2010 he (like Nouri) did just that.
He's power-hungry but while Nouri wants a third term and may get it (since the US government overruled the Iraqi vote in 2010 in order to give Nouri a second term), Jalal won't.
Unless his tired ass gets back to Iraq immediately, he will have spent one year out of the country (by the middle of November). His stroke means that his health is now a question mark and his refusal to step down during his nearly a year out of the country, nearly a year of not doing his job (while drawing a salary) that the Iraqi people will be loudly saying "no." And it may be hard for the US government to override the Iraqi vote this go round.
Friday, September 20th, the day before the election (security officers had voted early on September 19th), Prashant Rao (AFP) reported that, despite Jalal's health being a question mark and his having been out of the country for months, the PUK has been using Talbani's image in various campaign materials. In the Friday, September 20th snapshot, I offered that if the PUK did badly, Iraq's First Lady, Hero Ibrahim, would have to step down from her position in the PUK.
This week, Hero announced she was resigning from her position in the political party. That was a surprise to many. That it was a surprise to many goes to how stupid and uninformed many of the circle jerk 'analysts' the press cites (and Tweets about) actually are. We'll be taking on one in today's snapshot. I try to ignore him but he interviewed a liar. In the summer, a friend, an Australian, worked on a program that interviewed the same lying woman. The Australian called me to say the woman lied non-stop and not to worry about linking to the program. We had other things to cover that day so I didn't make time for the liar other than to quote a half-sentence from her nearly ten minute interview. That's about as much honesty as she can provide. One of the idiots in the US -- who is always wrong and loves to whine in e-mails -- most recently to Jim -- interviewed the liar and let her distort reality in her first response. Why? Because he's a whiney little bitch who's 'analysis' is half-baked and always has been and if it weren't for his buddy -- the one who went nuts in public and only stopped getting quoted by the Circle Jerk (of Jane Arraf, Prashant Rao and others) when I exposed for the nutcase he was in April with "A crackpot runs AFP, Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor."
As you try to figure out why the 'analysts' were so wrong about the results of the election -- from their prediction that the KDP was going down (because Massoud Barzani was so 'evil' and 'hated' and a hundred other lies), to their worship of the PUK and on and on -- grasp that if I hadn't exposed the crackpot -- running around the world claiming a crime unit was after him and following him into libraries, that the FBI was posing as the CIA to trick him, that no matter what country he went to the crime unit and the FBI was following him, that his own parents demanded he get therapy, etc -- if I hadn't made a point of exposing and shaming these idiots for circulating this crackpot's nonsense -- and Tom Ricks and everyone had pimped that lunatic -- he'd still be cited today by MSM journalists. And the result would be that we'd still be hearing the gas bags insisting Nouri was grace and God. The damage that the nutcase did and that his little friends did is immeasurable. You can't even measure it in the deaths in Iraq, the damage is that great.
Now his little buddy is left to flutter his wings alone. He still does damage but the press, for now anyway, appears to realize that they can't cite the nutcase's buddy any more than they can cite the nutcase himself.
The results are not surprising. Anyone should have seen it coming before the election.
AP explains the KDP came in first and they will have 38 seats in the KRG Parliament (there are 111 seats in the Parliament). (In fairness to AP, I should note that they didn't cite the crackpot in their work. They were among the few outlets over the last years who hadn't.) IANS adds: that Gorran (Change) got 24 seats, the PUK got 18 seats, the Kurdistan Islamic Union got "10 seats and the Islamic Group got six seats." Those were the major winners and that adds up to 96 seats (check my math). Anadolu Agency explains, "Minority candidates won 11 seats."
IANS reports, "Talabani's PUK and Barzani's KDP have long dominated politics in the three-province autonomous region of northern Iraq; however, the latest results showed that the Gorran movement won decisively in Sulaimaniyah province, which is the home base of the PUK." Anadoulu Agency adds, "Gorran is led by the PUK's former number two, Noshirwan Mustafa, who broke away from Talabani in 2006." Goran now joins the KDP as one of the two dominant political parties in the KRG. Whether this is a momentary upset for the PUK or the beginning of its slide downward isn't clear.
However, exit polling made clear these results by the morning of Sunday 22nd (the day after the election). The PUK's response was laughable. They met up and announced they'd meet again the following weekend. In the face of a major upset, they were going to wait a week to address it. That doesn't speak well of the leadership.
Hero's resignation isn't surprising. Again, we predicted she would be the fall guy September 20th if the PUK did badly in the next day's elections.
Hero was the fall guy because she is Jalal's face. Jalal was never that popular and, ahead of the 2010 elections, he became even less popular. We covered that in real time, how his public remarks destroyed Kurdish support -- in and out of Iraq -- for him. He tried to walk it back. Crackpot and his winged buddy couldn't tell you about that because they do cult of personality. That's what their writing is. It's not analysis. The winged buddy does footnotes -- and not hyper links -- in his online writing like that makes it scholarly. It doesn't. Nor does it make his writing sound.
They have repeatedly picked sides and then forced 'facts' to fit their personal choices.
Believe it or not, we don't do that here. We call out thug Nouri. We called him out in 2006 for various failures and that's continued to this day. We've called him a thug and worse due to, among other things, Ned Parker's excellent reporting over the years exposing one secret prison Nouri had after another. Calling him a thug shocked crackpot who e-mailed me at the start of 2008 to tell me how wrong I was. I responded with facts and with various US senators opinions of him. In April 2008, many of the US senators I cited in that e-mail went public with their judgments of Nouri. I could list them all but we'll just note one of them is now Vice President of the United States.
The call on Hero?
I like Hero. Everything I've heard about her is positive. As a feminist, I grappled with announcing she would be the fall guy.
But part of the reason she became the fall guy was her gender.
Angry Kurds who felt Jalal let them down (PUK members) would be more comfortable calling out a woman than a man -- especially a sick man.
Hero became the face of Jalal and that's why she had to step down. It's not fair. History will hopefully look back on Hero as one of the figures who held Iraq together in 2013 when it could have easily broken into even greater factions.
Obviously, I love the Iraqi youth activists. That's not in doubt. Since I've spent years speaking to colleges and high schools here in the US (as well as other groups but those are the main ones) -- and continue to -- I'm predisposed to love student activists working for freedoms and a better world. But there are many people and groups in Iraq that we cover that I'm neutral on or don't care for. But we cover them fairly. I had (wrongly) thought I would be able to note one this year. Maybe next year? Noting that I never cared for _____ is the only reason I might do this site for six more months (we're good to the end of the year, after that I'll either extend for six months or I won't). I have been slammed repeatedly for my coverage of ____ and accused of favoring ____ and all I've ever done with _____ is be fair. I honestly cannot stand ______. But that doesn't stop me from covering ____ or covering ____ fairly.
Crackpot and his winged buddy have been ruled by their passions and hormones. They've passed that off as 'analysis.' And they've been repeatedly wrong. Sadly, that flawed 'analysis' was treated by much of the press as accurate. It never was.
They didn't see the PUK going down. Big surprise. They were too busy going down on their personal heroes to offer objectivity.
Added: Five minutes after this went up, I realized (as I was closing pages on the KRG elections) that I'd pulled up Twitter but forgot to include reactions from it so here are some of today's Tweets on the KRG election results:
-
#krgelections Final results: KDP 38 seats | Gorran 24 | PUK 18 | IUK 10 | Komal 6 | Islamic movement 1 | leftists 3.#TwitterKurds -
Gorran is now the largest party in KRG most populous province and second placed in Erbil province and across
#KRG#KRGelections -
Socialists 12501 (1 seat) Communists 12392 (1 seats) Third way (Zahmahtkesh) 8681 (1 seat) + qoutas
#KRGelections -
KDP 743984 (38) Gorran 476736 (24) PUK 350500 (18) IUK 186841 (10) Komal 118574 (6) IMK 21834 (1)
#KRGelections -
Can someone explain why we read the KURDISH regional elections in arabic?
#twitterkurds#krgelections -
#KRGElections official results: KDP 38 seats, Gorran 24, PUK 18, Kurdistan Islamic Union 10, Kurdistan Islamic Group 6 -
What good is it if we read all the election results and names in arabic? Why dont they just translate it?
#twitterkurds#krgelections -
Gorran takes 24 seats despite increasing vote numbers. 25th seat goes to "third way list" as per qouta system
#krgelections -
476736 votes for gorran - movement for change. 2nd largest block in parliament
#krgelections -
I wonder why only
#KDP's final vote and seats has been announced in Badînî dialect?#KRGElections#TwitterKurds -
During the final announcement of the
#KRGElections, most of the#IHEC staff talking in Arabic :(#TwitterKurds -
KRG Elections Change Region's Politics, But Will It Change The Government? by
@JoelWing2 http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2013/10/krg-elections-change-regions-politics.html?spref=tw …#TwitterKurds#krgelections -
IHEC final results due tomorrow 10 am hotel Rotana
#Erbil. IHEC report that complaints will be addressed at time.#krgelections -
Damning, if true: RT
@Gorran_Change PUK leader Saidi Pira:'KDP cheated on#erbil,just werent caught,gorran&puk have most votes#krgelections -
Michael Rubin: Gorran can determine regions future not KDP/PUK. http://www.michaelrubin.org/13822/gorran-puk-kdp#.Ukn9xL4DAiU.twitter …
#krgelections#iraq#kurdistan#twitterkurds -
PUK leader Ala Talabani: PUK backtracking on Dabashan aggrement detrimental to PUK in the
#krgelections -
PUK leader Saidi Pira 'the KDP cheated on
#erbil, they just weren't caught, gorran & puk together have most votes'#KRGelections -
Michael Rubin: "
#Gorran can determine#Kurdistan Region's future, not#PUK or#KDP" http://www.michaelrubin.org/13822/gorran-puk-kdp#.Ukn9xL4DAiU.twitter …#KRGelections#TwitterKurds -
"after an early count was released, several people were killed in Erbil, Sulaimani....by stray bullets and celebratory fire"
#KRGElections -
2 terrorists caught minutes ago with TNT in their car in the dream city compound. Unconfirmed sources.
#Kurdistan#krgelections#terrorist
Hevidar
گۆڕان Gorran
Soma Malazada
INSIGHT
Kawa Taqiyaddin
Kamal Chomani
Ranj Alaaldin
TheChangeMovement
Akiko Yoshioka
Tesh Sharif
The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, PBS, Black Agenda Report, L Studio, NPR, Antiwar.com, Ms. magazine, Pacifica Evening News and the House Veterans Affairs Committee -- updated since yesterday evening:
About entries and posts. Syria has resulted in more demand for speaking. Dona kindly does the scheduling for that (and carves out the time for Congress as well, she's the one who knows what hearing I'm attending and what place we're speaking, I usually look at the schedule only the night before). Due to the increased demand, there were a lot more requests and she's had to schedule mornings. That's why the 'morning' posts now go up so late these last weeks. That will hopefully change at some point soon. If not, oh, well.
That's Cedric and Wally from yesterday. Martha told me e-mails to the public account (this was already covered in newsletters) were asking about my entries here (the time) and why Cedric and Wally were often posting at different times.
Cedric and Wally do joint-posts and have for years. They are humor posts.
Cedric doesn't always feel funny and they postpone their posts (such as today) and sometimes Cedric just doesn't have it in him and they don't post at all for 24 hours.
Why would that be?
Golly, I don't know. Maybe because Cedric's a father now. Maybe because his son is still just months old. A newborn is a lot of work and Ann and Cedric should be praised for being able to post at all. I'm amazed with all they juggle. But if you missed it, that's when and why Cedric and Wally's joint-post stopped going up at the same consistent time.
There should be another 'morning' entry here. There may or may not be. I have 20 minutes left in 'lunch' and then we're booked again. If I can, I'll try to put something up here on today's violence in Iraq -- tremendous -- and the good call from one outlet that Nouri needs to go. Otherwise, that'll have to wait for the snapshot.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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