After 27 years of misrule and authoritarianism by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the people of Iraqi Kurdistan Region have had enough of suffering. The government can no longer perform its duties. In late of March 2018, another phase of demonstrations erupted when protesters began taking to the streets to demand their salaries, profound reforms from a government they can no longer abide.

Demonstrations organized by teachers, university lecturers, doctors, public servants and the like, these peaceful demonstrations soon spread across the region including Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Region, and Duhok city for the first time for a while. Protesters began when the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in February 2016 drastically cut public sector salaries between 25%-75% in the name of reform. Public service salaries had not been paid in full since July 2015, but there is deeper political and economic crisis at work in Kurdistan Region.

The Iraqi government regularly accused the KRG of corruption and misrule, stating that KRG oil revenues are quite enough to cover public servant salaries in full. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, states that his government shares its figures with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, called on the KRG to release data on its finances or handover oil revenue to the federal government. He also pointed out that even Kurdistan parliament has no information on KRG oil revenue, income.

27 years after Kurdish uprising and self-determination, 15 years after the 2003 US invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, the Kurdistan region is plagued by unresolved internal political issues that have arisen from what last month's protesters called the KRG‌s undemocratic, unauthorized and illegal actions. Kurdistan Regional Government security forces detained at least 84 protesters and four journalists in late March, Human Rights Watch said Sunday, 15th April 2018. HRW report stated that many of the detentions appeared to be arbitrary, either because persons were detained because they were exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

The most critical and turning point for Kurdistan Region politics was Iraqi Kurdish politics was in September 2017, when the KRG and the outgoing Kurdistan region president, Masoud Barzani, unilaterally held an independence referendum despite all regional and international warning and quest to postpone it . After the independence referendum, on the 16th of October Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) lost approximately 40 percent of their territory and withdrew into the pre-ISIS 2003 borders at the behest of the regional powers. Kurds lost Kirkuk oil-rich city the hopes and dreams for Kurdish independence were dashed again.

When referendum chapter has turned, attention again turned back to the failures of the Kurdistan Region ruling cast. The two KRG nepotistic ruling clans, Barzani and Talabani have been misappropriated, siphoning off all Kurdistan oil revenue since the inception of the KRG. KDP-PUK corrupt misrule has crippled Kurdistan Region financially and politically; they rule the region undemocratically, both clans/parties control their own Peshmerga and security forces, and even territory has been divided politically.

In October 12th, 2015, Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yousif Mohammed, from Change Movement (Gorran), main rival opposition party in the region, was prevented by the KDP personal security forces from entering Iraqi Kurdistan‌s capital city, Erbil; other four Gorran ministers were fired unlawfully by KDP and Kurdistan Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani. The occurrence saw the region‌s parliament paralyzed for almost two years.

While Kurdistan Region claimed to practices democracy, but the reality of everyday life in Kurdistan shows another scene that KRG falls far short. Those who oppose, whether in print or in the street, are targeted by security forces. According to the latest report from Human Rights Watch, people have been detained just for participating in the protests and chanting against KRG.

Journalists who speak out and criticize the KRG have been assaulted, detained and in some cases killed in the Kurdistan region.  Amnesty International called for investigations into the deaths of journalists by the KRG in 2011, and 2013. In 2015 it also requested that in addition to investigating deaths of journalists, armed political party militias should also be investigated. This was also the case in 2016 and 2017.

In recent years, KDP and PUK security forces (Asayish) have violently attacked and killed protesters demanding their basic rights, an end to corruption. In 2011 alone, nine people killed in protests erupted in Sulaymaniyah which lasted 62 days. In 2015 and 2017, the security service opened fire on protesters, again killing some of them.

With two failed ruling parties, government and legal institutions paralyzed, violent repression of dissent, no justice or democracy, and a redundant constitution, elections delays, more than 10 vacuum ministries, lack of public services, its no wonder the Kurdistan region‌s residents oppose the government through mass strikes to try and defuse the crisis. Non-ruling political parties and people have called for free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections. The corrupt and ruthless KRG is hardly agreeable, but if the crisis isn‌t immediately addressed, then a full-scale collapse could be on the cards may be sooner as Iraqi parliamentary election looms scheduled on May 12.