A shift in the Baghdad-KRG balancing act
Summary: broken promises, corruption and poor governance in Iraqi
Kurdistan have caused the people there to take a less critical view of
Iraq’s Baghdad-based federal government.
We thank Winthrop Rodgers for today’s newsletter. A journalist and
analyst who spent several years in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, he focusses
on politics, human rights, and economics. He tweets @wrodgers2
One of the most significant developments in Iraq in recent years is
the progressive rebalancing of the country’s federal system. Over the
past two decades, the Kurdistan Region has enjoyed wide latitude to
manage its own affairs, while the federal government in Baghdad
struggled with instability and violence. Since 2022, however, federal
authorities have exerted greater influence over affairs in the Kurdistan
Region, using the Federal Supreme Court (FSC) as a primary tool.
Some Kurdish political leaders have expressed great concern about
this development, as have members of the international community. Yet,
officials in Erbil have little capacity or public support in pushing
back against Baghdad’s centralising ambition due to growing political
division and economic dysfunction across the Kurdistan Region.
Under Article 117 of the Iraqi constitution,
the Kurdistan Region is endowed with special status. However, it is
subject to the constitution and the primacy of the federal state. The
Kurdistan Region was largely spared the direct effects of the Iraqi
civil war in the 2000s and the war against the Islamic State (ISIS)
militant group in the 2010s. Nevertheless, disagreements often arose
between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal
government, particularly over the budget and the oil industry. Baghdad
was unable to enforce its will over Erbil beyond cutting off budget
payments. This caused economic difficulties, but independent oil exports
and Erbil’s strong ties with the international community insulated it
from the worst effects.
Since the end of the ISIS war, federal Iraq has stabilised in terms
of the security situation. Politically, it has also moved beyond the
upheaval of the Tishreen Movement that began in October 2019 with the
ruling Shia Coordination Framework constituting a relatively cohesive
government. Among its goals are to centralise the country’s oil
industry, enforce the terms of the budget law,
and undermine political rivals. The Coordination Framework’s primary
means in this regard is the FSC under the leadership of Chief Justice of
the Supreme Judicial Council Faiq Zaidan. Article 93 of the constitution
empowers the FSC to settle “disputes that arise between the federal
government and the governments of the regions and governorates.” There
is no chance to appeal decisions made by the FSC, as it is the court of
last resort. As a result, it is a tremendously powerful tool in the
context of disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil.
Since 2022, the FSC has handed down a series of rulings that
undermine the KRG’s ability to promote an independent oil policy,
conduct its own elections, and manage its self-governing political
institutions. For example, the court ruled
on February 15, 2022 that the KRG’s oil and gas law was
unconstitutional. This put the contracts between international oil
companies and the KRG at risk of being invalidated. The following year,
Iraq won an international arbitration case against Türkiye, which suspended the Kurdistan Region’s independent exports entirely. A subsequent negotiation
between Baghdad and Erbil gave federal oil officials the sole power to
market hydrocarbons pumped in the Kurdistan Region, though exports have
not yet resumed. Together these changes undermined Erbil’s financial
autonomy.
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