Sherwan Hassan – Activists
The political and administrative trajectory of the Kurdistan Region reveals a deliberate pattern of governance in which public interests are subordinated to the personal, familial, and partisan gains of the ruling elite. Exposing the nation to humiliation, facilitating the extraction and misappropriation of public wealth, fragmenting society, manufacturing artificial opposition groups, and operating as local agents for external powers have all become systemic strategies used to preserve entrenched authority during moments of national crisis.
One prominent example of this governance failure is the re-emergence of the dual-salary system under the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Despite repeated public statements from both Erbil and Baghdad claiming to have reached mechanisms for stabilizing public finance, the same cycle recurs annually:
officials quietly receive double salaries while simultaneously promoting narratives that Baghdad has once again “betrayed” Kurdistan.
Yet these same officials enthusiastically welcome Iraqi delegations, celebrating federal cooperation and unity—except when federal obligations require their own fiscal accountability. Such commitments apply only to the public, never to the ruling class benefiting from these contradictions.
The ordinary citizen, meanwhile, is left with a single question:
What obligations do the people owe when their leaders refuse to abide by any obligations themselves?
This political elite attempts to turn 58 salaries into 85, transfers 120 billion dinars of local revenue to Baghdad, and then demands that the Iraqi government release the September salary in return. Meanwhile:
- 77 days have passed without the full disbursement of the September salary;
- 47 days have passed without the completion of the October salary;
- and there is still no information whatsoever regarding the November salary.
Although activists continue to expose corruption and advocate for accountability, the scale of institutionalized corruption has become deeply entrenched. Efforts to build public awareness are further undermined by the regime’s sophisticated propaganda apparatus, which repeatedly succeeds in manipulating public perception. As a result, many citizens—despite overwhelming evidence—continue to accept the narratives disseminated by what has effectively become a political mafia.
This ruling minority, resembling modern-day pharaonic figures, elevates itself above the nation and treats the population as dispensable. Whenever discussions concerning security or governance arise, they reflexively claim:
“We did this for Kurdistan.”
In reality, from the era of guerrilla warfare in the mountains until the present day, their authority has relied on entrenched patronage networks, systemic theft, and the deliberate construction of a corrupt administrative order designed to secure personal and partisan continuation in power. Throughout this period, they have consistently undermined the intellectual class, suppressing critical voices capable of challenging their deception, their exploitation, and their monopolization of public resources.
Their ultimate achievement has been the erosion of the public’s capacity for critical reflection, creating a society overwhelmed by daily survival and deprived of the time, tools, and institutional pathways needed to hold its leaders accountable.
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