A Kurdish man puts his finger into a bottle of ink at a polling station during the referendum vote in Erbil, Iraq, on Sept. 25, 2017. Picture by Khalil Dawood/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images. All rights reserved. On the 25th of September, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) organized a highly controversial independence referendum. Though non-binding, the Iraqi Parliament declared the vote illegal, and obliged the government of Prime Minister Al-Abadi to take all necessary measures to preserve the unity of Iraq. The Kurds did not bulge – not to the threats from Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara, nor to pressure from Kurdistan’s closest international allies to postpone the vote. In a day filled with hope and euphoria, close to 93 percent of the Kurdistani electorate voted in favor of independence, with a turnout of 72 percent.
Two weeks later, the Iraqi government’s hostile post-referendum moves may seem to leave the Kurds with little reason for optimism. But in Kurdistan, resistance never comes as a surprise.
The Kurds’ concerns
In the two weeks before the referendum, I was in Iraqi Kurdistan to conduct interviews with politicians, minority representatives, researchers, and civil society activists. Within this fortnight, Kurdistan’s capital city Erbil transformed into a vibrant advertisement in favor of independence as the streets got lined with flags, buildings covered in banners, and car windows blinded by pictures of KRG President Massoud Barzani. Everyone seemed obsessed with the referendum, and few people questioned that the yes-campaign would win by a landslide.
