Kurdistan Democratic Party

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (Kurdish: پارتی دیموکراتی کوردستان, romanized: Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê), 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.

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.

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.