By Noreldin Waisy
Contrary to the statements and promises of officials that the posts of the new KRG cabinet would be filled with technocrats and professional candidates, several of the former ministers remained in their positions, which in the past four year had not made any significant development or success in their posts. While the new ministers didn’t meet the expectations of people.
In the so- called “technocratic cabinet”, the Minister of Endowment Religious Affairs has only primary school degree, the Minister of Finance and Economy has secondary school degree, and the Minister of Peshmarge Affairs never finished secondary school! Four of the new ministers have health degrees (ministers of Health, Martyrs' Affairs, Higher Education and Scientific Studies, and the Minister of Planning). In addition to that, among the nineteen ministers there is only one female minister.
The most shocking point was to give the Ministry of Endowment Religious Affairs to an Islamic party that is considered to be the mother of the political Islamism and extremism in Kurdistan. Those Islamic groups not only don’t look at all religions equally, but moreover they consider other religion as ignorance and infidels. They look at Christians and Yazidis as devil worshipers. The Ministry of Endowment Religious Affairs has two special directorates for Christians and Yazidis affairs. One wonders if the Minister of Endowment Religious Affairs treats Muslims Christians and Yazidis equally. I wonder if he considers Churches and Yazidis’ Lalish as holy places just like he considers mosques holy places.
It was good that the Prime Minister and his deputy refused the conditions of Kurdistan Islamic League that had been set to join the government. The Islamic League wanted to impose some unfair Islamic conditions along with some other positive conditions such as the creation of a Public Integrity Commission, fighting party control on the government, and unifying the Peshmarga forces.
Among the demands of the Islamic League were; abolishing any legislation that is contradictory to the Islamic principles, abolishing the system of boys and girls studying together in primary and secondary schools, putting an end to mortgages interests, opening the doors of mosque for Sharia studies and paying more attentions to Islamic studies in schools. Well, meeting all those demands would have resulted in one thing; changing the name of the Kurdistan Regional Government to the Kurdistan Regional Islamic Government.
