Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party
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Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria
Partiya Dîmoqratî Pêşverû Kurd li Sûriyê |
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| Secretary-General | Abd al-Hamid Darwish |
| Founded | 1965 |
| Split from | Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria |
| Headquarters | Amuda, al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria |
| Paramilitary wing | None official; de facto participation in Kurdish Front, and YPG |
| Membership | c. 9,600 (2011 estimate) |
| Ideology |
Federalism Kurdish nationalism Socialism |
| Political position | Centre-left to centre-right |
| National affiliation |
Kurdish Democratic Alliance in Syria (1994-2012?) Kurdish National Council (2012-15) |
| People's Council |
0 / 250
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| Democratic Council |
1 / 43
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Kurdish Democratic Alliance in Syria (1994-2012?)
The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria (Kurdish: Partiya Dîmoqratî Pêşverû Kurd li Sûriyê; short: KDPP or PDPKS) is one of the oldest Kurdish parties in Syria, having been active since seceding from the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria the 1960s. Prominently led by Abd al-Hamid Darwish, who was described as "one of the last remaining of the original Kurdish political activists", the PDPKS serves as the Syrian sister party of the Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Known for its moderate and conciliatory politics, the party has sided at different times during the Syrian Civil War with the Syrian opposition, the Ba'athist government, the Kurdish National Council (of which it was a founding member), and the Democratic Union Party.
Abd al-Hamid Darwish, son of an agricultural landowner family and early Kurdish youth activist, helped to establish the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS) in 1957 and was part of the party's leading figures until the mid-1960s. By then, the KDPS became split into two ideological camps, with one following a more traditional, conservative Kurdish nationalism, while the other espoused a modernist, national ideology. These tensions resulted in several small factions breaking off from the party, and in 1965 the KDPS officially split into the "Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria (Left Wing)" and the "Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria (Right Wing)", the latter being led by Abd al-Hamid Darwish. This year is now regarded has the de facto founding year of the PDPKS. Unlike the other KDPS factions, Darwish's party occupied a more moderate stance between radical Leftist and conservative views.
Though the two KDPS main faction briefly reunited in 1970 under pressure by the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Darwish and his followers soon broke off again and revived the KDPS (right wing). At the time, Darwish's party primarily included urban merchants, professionals, religious leaders and landowners. Internationally, the KDPS (right wing) aligned itself with the programmatically similar KDP faction of Jalal Talabani. When Talabani announced in 1975 that he would break with the KDP and form his own party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Darwish believed that it would be only fitting if he likewise changed his party's name to distance himself from the KDP. As result, his faction adopted the name "Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party" (PDPKS) in 1976. Elements within the PDPKS disagreed with the pro-Talabani course of Darwish, however, and over the following years broke away from the PDPKS to form their own parties: One pro-Barzani faction that readopted the KDPS name; the later Wekhevi (Equality) Party, which also originally called itself the "Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party"; and finally a third faction, which formed the Kurdish National Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the main KDPS group (the one from which Darwish had broken away in 1970) came to be supported by the KDP. As the KDP and PUK grew into bitter rivals, the tensions between them negatively influenced the relationship between the PDPKS and the KDPS. On the other side, the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party developed good relations with the PKK-allied Democratic Union Party (PYD).
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Wikipedia