The Kurdistan Democratic Party (), usually abbreviated as KDP or PDK, is the ruling party in Iraqi Kurdistan and the senior partner in the Kurdistan Regional Government. It was founded in 1946 in Mahabad in Iranian Kurdistan. The party states that it combines "democratic values and social justice to form a system whereby everyone in Kurdistan can live on an equal basis with great emphasis given to rights of individuals and freedom of expression."
The KDP is dominated by the Barzani tribe and the party's stated ideologies are conservatism, secularism, and Kurdish nationalism.
History Foundation
In 1946, the leader of the Soviet-backed Republic of Mahabad, Qazi Muhammad, announced the formation of a "Kurdish Democratic Party" based in Iran, or Eastern Kurdistan. The Soviet Union, then supporting the Kurdish national struggle against the monarchies of Iran and Iraq, instructed Mustafa Barzani to place himself under the authority of Qazi Muhammad. It is not clear whether Barzani ever formally agreed to this arrangement, but as a fugitive from Iraqi authorities he relied upon the goodwill of the Iranian Kurds and their Soviet backers, and local Kurds were ordered by the authority of the Republic of Mahabad to house and feed his destitute forces.
It was "well known in nationalist circles that the relations between the two men [Barzani and Qazi] were not easy". Barzani attempted to create a special dispensation for the Barzanis in Iran, but Qazi rebuffed them stating "There is to be only one party, and you must not operate separately from it." In the meantime, Barzani was negotiating with Baghdad to allow his return to Iraq, and was successfully attempting to convince prominent Iraqi Kurds of the need for an Iraqi KDP. Rizgari, the Kurdish section of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), was vehemently opposed to the idea, as it would fracture the purpose of pan-Kurdish unity and give legitimacy to the Iraq-Iran border that divided Kurdistan.
Nevertheless, Barzani's manoeuvrings were successful and he split Rizgari, even gaining support from committed leftists because of the wide popularity he enjoyed amongst Kurdish people, and his position as chief notable of the tribal elders, who it was argued, the nationalist movement needed on their side if it were to be militarily successful.
The new KDP of Iraq held its first congress in Baghdad on August 16, 1946. The 32 delegates elected a central committee with Hamza Abdullah as secretary-general, Shaykh Latif and Kaka Ziad Agha as vice-presidents, and Barzani as president-in-exile. The party demanded autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan, stating that the political and economic situation of the Kurds in Iraq was different from that of Iran. The party programme was not specific about any social or economic content for fear of alienating the highly conservative tribal chiefs and landlords who had agreed to support it.
Consolidation After the collapse of the Mahabad republic in early 1947, Ibrahim Ahmad, previously the Sulaymaniyah representative of the Iranian KDP (KDP-I), joined the Iraqi KDP. Ahmad was a highly influential Leftist intellectual, who by 1951 had succeeded in rallying most of the Iraqi Kurdish leftist-nationalists to the KDP, which in turn, took the opportunity to convene a second party congress and duly elect Ahmad as secretary-general (effectively acting chairman).
Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the KDP and the Kurdish members of the Iraqi Communist Party steadily increased their working relationship – in many cases fielding joint candidates. The ICP campaigned directly against the aghas (tribal elders) and won the support of the workers in the cities of Erbil, Duhok, and Sulaymaniyah – while the KDP reassured the aghas that the ICP was ultimately under their control. By 1954 the KDP was advocating the replacement of the Iraqi monarchy with a popular democratic republic – much to the consternation of many of their tribal supporters.
Indeed, in 1956, the antagonism between the Kurdish aghas and the KDP-ICP reached such a height that emissaries for the former contacted the British consul in Mosul requesting arms and finance to establish an "anti-Communist and independent Kurdistan" in northern Iraq.
Under revolutionary Iraq On July 14, 1958, Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and his fellow "Free Officers" (modeled after Nasser's Egyptian Free Officers) staged a successful coup that promised a brighter future for the Kurds of Iraq. Although the KDP and ICP were excluded from the new United National Front government, Qasim formed a three-man "Sovereignty Council" of a Sunni, a Shi'i, and a Kurd. The KDP immediately pledged its support for the new regime, in its newspaper hailing a new era of "freedom and equality for the Kurdish and Arab peoples".
Ibrahim Ahmad attempted to pressure Qasim into including Kurdish autonomy in the Provisional Constitution. However, Qasim was under much greater pressure from his deputy Abdul Salam Arif and other pan-Arab Nationalists – not least the Ba'ath – who wanted to take Iraq into the United Arab Republic (UAR). They objected to Qasim's apparently pro-Kurdish attitude and his friendliness towards Mustafa Barzani in particular.
Qasim and Mulla Mustafa had developed a close relationship, as Qasim saw in Barzani a powerful military ally that he could employ as a counterweight to the pan-Arab nationalists, who, he feared, threatened to subvert Iraq to Nasser's Egypt. Qasim had officially named him Chairman of the KDP (a position he held on paper since the party's founding), gave him one of Nuri as-Said's old residences in Baghdad, an automobile, and a "handsome monthly stipend" (salary). Mulla Mustafa would prove his loyalty in March 1959, where he helped Qasim suppress a serious uprising in Mosul of pan-Arab nationalists and Ba'athist officers – at the behest of Mulla Mustafa, Kurds, in tandem with the Communists (also led by a Kurd) attacked Mosul wreaking havoc on Nationalists and Baathists and killing as many as 2,500 people in four days. While the Communists and Kurds settled scores, Qasim used the revolt as a pretext to purge Nationalists and Baathists from the Iraqi armed forces and government.
Qasim used an almost identical event that July, but this time in Kirkuk, as a pretext to act against the KDP's closest allies, the Communists. In 1959 half of the 150,000 population of Kirkuk was Iraqi Turkmen, with the balance comprising Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and Armenians (in that order). Mulla Mustafa's triumphal visit to the city the previous October had resulted in bloodshed, but this time killings were carried out by Communist and Kurdish members of a group called the "Popular Resistance Force", who attacked shops and their owners. As many as 50 Turkmen were killed. Qasim held the Communists responsible and claimed to have uncovered plans for a similar action in Baghdad. During the next few months, Mulla Mustafa helped Qasim reduce the ICP and there was open conflict in Iraqi Kurdistan between the KDP, backed by Kurdish tribesmen, and the Kurdish Communists.
Meanwhile, an ideological rift developed in the KDP between the intellectual and leftists Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani on the one hand, and Mulla Mustafa and the Barzanis on the other. Mulla Mustafa "talked freely, with a bitterness amounting to hatred, against the... intellectual presumptuousness of the KDP politicians, singling out Ibrahim Ahmad for his particular dislike". While Ahmad complained of Mulla Mustafa's "selfishness, arbitrariness, unfairness, tribal backwardness and even his dishonesty." But while each wanted to reduce the others' influence in the KDP, each also knew that the other was indispensable in securing the loyalty of their respective support-bases – the tribal villagers and nomads for Barzani, and the urban and educated for Ahmad/Talabani.
During the 1950s, Mulla Mustafa strengthened his position by eliminating the forces of rival tribes – the Harkis, Surchis, Baradustis, and Zibaris. Qasim urged restraint, but Mulla Mustafa pressed on regardless, a much intertribal bloodletting followed, eventually taking such scalps as Ahmad Muhammad Agha, chief of the Zibaris.
As a result of this and past violence in Mosul and Kirkuk, Qasim slowly began to distance himself from the Mulla Mustafa and the KDP, and in a 1960 speech publicly disparaged the Barzani clan. Qasim feared Barzani hegemony and began supporting the Harki and Zibari tribes against Mulla Mustafa. The Kurds for their part, in particular Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani, felt increasingly frustrated that Qasim had taken no practical steps towards Kurdish autonomy.
Kurdistan slowly and almost inadvertently headed towards revolt, and between 1961 and 1963, violence engulfed Kurdistan and the longstanding divisions between the socialist-nationalists such as Talabani, and Mulla Mustafa and the old tribal Aghas solidified as they disagreed as to how to conduct the revolt and for what purpose. Mullah Mustafa unsuccessfully sought the assistance first of Britain, and then the USA – which lost him any of the remaining allies he had in the Iraqi Communist Party. The whole country descended into chaos as a quarter of the villages of Kurdistan were attacked and 80,000 refugees created. Qasim not only lost control of the mountains of Kurdistan, but was being isolated politically in Baghdad by the pan-Arab nationalists, and it seemed only a matter of time before he lost power.
Early Ba'ath Party rule
The KDP, together with many other Kurds, welcomed the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, believing the various Baath assurances that Kurdish autonomy would be guaranteed. Unfortunately for the Kurds, the zeitgeist had thoroughly turned against them, as in Baghdad there was a widespread belief that they were being used as a Trojan horse by either Iran, the West, or both. Negotiations on the status of Kurdistan deadlocked, especially over the status of Kirkuk. The KDP demanded control over the city and its rich oilfields, whereas the government countered that the 1947 census showed that Kurds made up only 25% of the population of the city, and Iraqi Turkmen over half. Mulla Mustafa threatened war, and Baghdad took up the challenge. Baath troops occupied Sulaymaniyah and declared martial law and a curfew, rounding up political leaders and activists. Three days later when martial law was lifted, 80 bodies were found in a mass grave and hundreds more went missing. Kurdish delegates were arrested throughout Iraq, and the intellectuals of the KDP quarreled with Mulla Mustafa over his tactics.
The first Ba'ath government was overthrown and replaced by a "National Command of the Revolutionary Council" (NCRC) led by Abdul Salam Arif. While this regime's ideology was essentially the same, it favored peace with the Kurds as the war had been costly and unpopular. Indeed, Arif had contacted Mulla Mustafa before the coup in order to elicit his co-operation to resist the Baath offensive until he could oust them himself.
Mulla Mustafa signed an agreement with Arif in his personal capacity, rather than as president of the KDP. This infuriated Ibrahim Ahmad and Jalal Talabani as the agreement omitted any mention of self-administration, let alone autonomy – the whole point for which they had been fighting. Arif threatened force against any Kurdish opponent of Mulla Mustafa, while Mulla Mustafa declared that any resistance to Baghdad would constitute a declaration of war against himself and the Barzanis. Mulla Mustafa informed Arif that he had no objection to the abolition of Kurdish political parties, so long as it served the "interests of Iraq", and began to receive arms and funds from Abdul Salam Arif.