Dissident New Generation MPs refuse to face disciplinary committee
SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – New Generation has formed a disciplinary committee to investigate some of its lawmakers who recently accused the party of being a one-man show and its leader of blackmail. One lawmaker said they won’t appear before the committee.
The party was recently plunged into crisis when some members accusing the leadership of running a business masquerading as a party, of making unilateral decisions, and of blackmailing them with threats to publish nude videos.
“The New Generation has been shifted from a political movement different from the dominant political model to a political band in which all of its institutions and the important decision-making bodies have been marginalized,” read a statement from the party’s Supreme Council and two of its prominent members in the Iraqi parliament, Rabun Maroof and Sarkawt Shamsulddin.
The statement was published on Facebook on April 21.
New Generation “no longer enjoys collective decision making,” the statement said.
The statement subsequently drew support from the party’s lawmakers in the Kurdistan Region parliament, who accused party leader Shaswar Abdulwahid of blackmailing them into silence by threatening to circulate doctored nude videos of them.
“I received a text message a few hours before publishing the statement by the faction in the Kurdistan Region. Some other faction members have also received similar messages. In the text, there is a tampered video and some photos have been sent to me. It says: wait for the publication of your nude films too,” Shadi Nawzad, a female lawmaker in Kurdistan Region parliament said in a press conference held in front of the parliament on April 24.
“Leaders of this movement, including Supreme Council and faction members, are being threatened with the publication of tampered videos of their private lives,” she added.
The party has now called on dissenting MPs to appear before its disciplinary committee for investigation.
“The disciplinary committee is still waiting for those who have broken away to appear before the committee in order to be investigated by the party. The deadline will expire on Thursday after which the New Generation Movement will be at liberty to make any decision on them,” a member of the party’s supreme council told Rudaw.
“The election was semi-open, which is why we cannot strip them of their position as members of Kurdistan and Iraqi parliament. The committee has been formed to investigate them, not only to hear their apology. They have violated the Movement’s by-laws. Hence, they will be investigated. The Supreme Council which will be supervised by leader of the Movement will meet on Thursday and make a final decision on them,” a high-level official in the party told Rudaw on condition of anonymity.
Following accusations of blackmail, Sulaimani Asayesh arrested Abdulwahid’s secretary on April 23 and confiscated some computers, mobile phones, and other devices suspected to have been used to threaten the party’s lawmakers, film them, and record their voices, according to sources.
The New Generation Movement has four MPs in Baghdad and eight in Erbil. Two in Baghdad and four in Erbil remain with the leader of the Movement.
Sarkawt Shamsadin, one of the dissenting MPs in Baghdad, told Rudaw they haven’t yet discussed “whether or not they will continue under the name of the New Generation Movement.”
“We will resolve this through dialogue,” he said. “But we will surely not appear before the disciplinary committee which we don’t believe in.”
New Generation leader Abdulwahid has accused the dissenting lawmakers of being “spies and traitors.”
One of the MPs has lodged a lawsuit against Abdulwahid over the threats to circulate nude videos.
Abdulwahid was abroad when this sting of events occurred, but has now come back to the Kurdistan Region and recently met with party members.
“This is orchestrated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in a bid to stop us,” he had told party members in the meeting.