Peregraf — A revealing account from within Kurdish political circles captures the confusion at the heart of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)'s latest setback in Baghdad.
A few hours before voting began, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) met Fuad Hussein — Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs — at his residence. The delegation was led by Qubad Talabani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and brother of PUK president Bafel Talabani.
According to a Peregraf source, "Fuad Hussein agreed to withdraw and support the PUK candidate, Nizar Amedi. He attempted to contact Masoud Barzani by phone to obtain his approval, but Barzani did not answer. This left Fuad Hussein stuck; he did not know what to do and chose to remain silent."
The consequences were immediate. The KDP parliamentary bloc did not attend the session, meaning it was not present to formally withdraw its own candidate. Hussein remained on the ballot without backing and received only 16 votes in the first round — a figure that stands in stark contrast to the KDP's 27 seats in parliament, meaning the votes he received did not even come from his own party's bloc. "If the party itself boycotts and refuses to vote for its own nominee, who else would?" the source said, adding that the KDP had nominated a candidate it ultimately failed to support.
The same source warned of broader implications. "If the KDP continues in Baghdad with this mindset, it will suffer even greater losses. A bigger hurdle ahead for the KDP is the budget law, and the Shiite factions are already making threats, at a time when the Kurdistan Region relies on the Iraqi federal government for its public employees' salaries." Those transfers, when paid in full, amount to roughly 950 billion Iraqi dinars — approximately $633 million — per month, and remain contingent on the KRG meeting its obligations to Baghdad, including oil exports and the transfer of internal revenues.
This episode has become a focal point for assessing the KDP's strategy in Baghdad. The party, led by Masoud Barzani, remains the dominant political force in the Kurdistan Region, yet its federal approach appears increasingly inconsistent. The handling of Hussein's candidacy suggests either a breakdown in internal coordination or a tactical miscalculation that collapsed under pressure.
A different account of Hussein's role came from Bafel Talabani, president of the PUK, who claimed after his party secured the presidency, that the episode reflected a deliberate effort to preserve political balance. "I am certain he knew that to maintain balance, it might be more appropriate for this post to go to the PUK," Talabani said.
He described Hussein as a "distinguished man" and claimed the KDP nominee had deliberately held back. "I am sure he could have exerted much more effort and secured significantly more votes, but for the sake of national and Kurdish unity, and to ensure the process moved forward smoothly without complications or 'headaches', he conducted his politics in that way."
Talabani's remarks contrast sharply with the KDP's own posture, which rejected the legitimacy of Amedi's election and boycotted the vote. Whether Hussein acted out of deliberate restraint or party-level paralysis, the result was the same: the KDP's candidate was left stranded on the ballot.
The presidency — traditionally held by a Kurdish figure since 2005 under Iraq’s informal power-sharing arrangement — was ultimately secured by Amedi following a two-round vote in parliament on April 11, 2026. In the first round, no candidate reached the required two-thirds threshold of approximately 220 votes. Amedi led with 208 votes, while Hussein received 16. In the runoff, Amedi secured 227 of 249 votes cast, comfortably surpassing the simple majority required. Amedi — a PUK Politburo member, head of the PUK's Baghdad office, and former Minister of Environment — becomes Iraq's fifth head of state since 2005.
For Iraqi political actors, the message from this episode is clear. A party that nominates a senior federal official yet does not mobilize its own parliamentary bloc to support him risks being seen as an unreliable partner. In a system built on negotiation and institutional presence, absence carries political cost.
The implications extend beyond the presidency. The Kurdistan Region remains financially dependent on Baghdad for public sector salaries, making upcoming budget negotiations a critical test. With Shiite factions already signaling a firmer stance, and the Kurdistan Region still absorbing the economic shockwaves of the US-Israel war on Iran — which disrupted oil exports and strained regional revenues — the KDP's diminished standing may weaken its leverage at a particularly difficult moment.
This outcome also reflects a longer pattern. This is Fuad Hussein's second time on the ballot as a KDP presidential candidate — he was formally voted on in 2018 and lost to Barham Salih of the PUK, and was also named as the party's formal backup candidate in 2022 before being replaced by Rebar Ahmed ahead of the parliamentary vote. The party has now failed to secure the presidency in three consecutive cycles — 2018, 2022, and 2026 — and has not established a durable framework for Kurdish consensus. The rivalry with the PUK continues to fragment Kurdish representation in Baghdad.
Its alliances have shifted without producing stability. The party's 2022 alignment with Muqtada al-Sadr and Mohammed al-Halbousi collapsed, while its current alignment with Nouri al-Maliki — a figure the United States has explicitly opposed returning as prime minister — sits uneasily with the KDP's self-presentation as Washington's closest Kurdish partner.
The aftermath of Amedi's election has further exposed internal divisions. Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region, and Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the KRG, had not issued formal congratulations as of more than a day after the vote. Both hold official positions that represent the Kurdistan Region as a whole — not only KDP constituents — and their silence carries an institutional dimension that goes beyond political signalling: as officials whose roles obligate them to represent all of Kurdistan's people and engage with federal institutions on their behalf, the failure to acknowledge a newly elected Iraqi head of state sits at odds with those obligations.
The KDP has also withdrawn its representatives from federal institutions for consultations and declared it will not recognize Amedi's election as legitimate, arguing that the presidency should be determined through Kurdish consensus rather than a broader parliamentary majority.
These tensions in Baghdad are not unfolding in isolation. The KRG has also failed to form a new regional government since its October 2024 parliamentary elections, with KDP-PUK disputes over cabinet portfolios stalling formation for more than five months. The same rivalry paralyzing Kurdish representation at the federal level is simultaneously freezing the Region's own institutions.
The case of Fuad Hussein now stands as a defining example of the KDP's current approach in Baghdad. A senior Kurdish official was nominated for the presidency but left without party backing at the decisive moment. Whether interpreted as internal disarray or calculated ambiguity, the result has weakened the party's standing in Baghdad at a time when it can least afford it.
Unless the KDP recalibrates its strategy, either by reaching a workable understanding with the PUK or by adopting a more coherent federal approach, similar outcomes are likely to recur. The next test, as the source suggests, will come in budget negotiations, where political capital is essential and increasingly scarce.