PUK Co-President Lahur Sheikh Jangi (Screenshot/Facebook/Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabany)
PM:07:20:02/11/2021
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SULAIMANI — Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Co-President Lahur
Sheikh Jangi released a lengthy statement on Tuesday (November 2) criticizing
the direction of the party and calling for a resolution to the power struggle
with his co-president, Bafel Talabani, through an intervention by the party’s
highest-level decision making body.
Within an hour of the release of his statement, media
outlets affiliated with Talabani and the PUK cited a "senior official" saying that Sheikh Jangi and three others had been "expelled" from the party.
A source close to Talabani speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the apparent expulsion to NRT, though it was not immediately clear what mechanism had been used to do so.
"I ask the PUK Leadership Council…to carry out its duty and
convene as soon as possible, in order to find a solution to this situation,
solve the ongoing issues, bring the PUK back to the right political path and
achieve our goals,” Sheikh Jangi said in a video and text statement posted on Facebook at just past 7 p.m. local time.
The statement constitutes Sheikh Jangi’s long-awaited "stance” that
he promised to deliver after the October 10 Iraqi parliamentary election.
In early July, Talabani and his younger brother, Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, removed several
of Sheikh Jangi’s family members and allies from key security positions, closed
down a media outlet belonging to his wing of the party, and tried to push him to step aside from his position and leave the country, which he has refused
to do.
Although remaining tense, the situation calmed somewhat as
the party undertook the election campaign. Sheikh Jangi largely refrained from
making public statements leaving his political rivals to oversee the effort,which saw the party lose two seats and many PUK voters stay home on election
day.
In his Tuesday statement, Sheikh Jangi hit out strongly at
the Talabani camp for without naming them directly, saying that the party "went
backwards in this election and the number of votes [was] largely reduced."
He blamed his rivals for upsetting his own plans for the campaign,
which he claimed would have netted the party the most seats of any of the
parties of the Region.
"However, the enemies of Kurdistan and the PUK became
concerned with this, so they began plotting and trying their best to destroy
the coalition and put cracks between us to hit the national line internally
within the PUK," he said, in an apparent reference to the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), with which Sheikh Jangi has an antagonistic relationship.
"We all know very well that a party in Kurdistan, which
prevents reform, has taken away the credibility of our institutions and has
taken over the resources of this nation and become a burden for this nation,"
he said of the KDP, before alleging that the Erbil-based party will commit fraud in next year’s
regional elections.
Addressing himself to his powerbase in the PUK’s grassroots,
Sheikh Jangi called on them to support a return to the "right political path."
"The new PUK is devoid of strategies, programs, and
projects. Currently, the PUK does not own any issue, strategy, statement, or
projects. I am sure that you have noticed and discuss this daily," he said.
"However, you should not be discouraged, because this stage
will pass with the help of the PUK’s loyal followers. There is still a chance,
and it is not too late to solve the ongoing problems wisely," he added.
To do this, he said that the PUK General Leadership Council
must meet in order to resolve the dispute.
"We must act responsibly, starting with ourselves, and put
an end to this imposed situation within our party, and save PUK from the state
it is in."
Just past 7:30 p.m. local time, media outlets affiliated with the
Talabanis released breaking stories citing a PUK official that Sheikh Jangi had
been expelled, along with Shadman Mala Hassan, Ala Talabani, Aras Sheikh Jangi, and Zhino Muhammed.
Later, a statement was posted on the Facebook page of Hero Ibrahim Ahmad, which said that "anyone who is against what is good for the PUK and has not participated in the election campaign will be expelled from the PUK no matter their position or authority."
She is the widow of longtime party leader Jalal Talabani and the mother of Bafel and Qubad.
(NRT Digital Media)
This story was updated at 10:32 p.m. EBL