National Progressive Front (Iraq)
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National Progressive Front
الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية |
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|---|---|
| Secretary-General | Naim Haddad |
| Founder | Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr |
| Founded | 1974 |
| Dissolved | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Baghdad, Iraq |
| Ideology |
Arab nationalism Arab socialism |
The National Progressive Front (Arabic: الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية, al-Jabha al-Wataniyyah at-Taqaddumiyyah, NPF, sometimes known as the Progressive Patriotic and National Front) was an Iraqi Popular Front announced on 16 July 1973 and constituted in 1974, ostensibly formed within the framework of a "joint action programme" to establish a coalition between the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the Iraqi Communist Party, the Kurdistan Revolutionary Party, a pro-government section of the Kurdish Democratic Party, and miscellaneous independents. The Iraqi Communist Party were removed from the NPF in 1979 while the Kurdish Democratic Party suffered restrictions when Saddam Hussein came to power after 1979. The creation of the Front ensured the leading role of the Ba'athists in state and society whilst allowing limited autonomy for other participating parties loyal to the government. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein spoke of it once as "one of the essential forms to voice our will and to deepen democracy and political participation of the people and the national forces in building the new experiment in all fields." In effect the Front was controlled and maintained solely by the Ba'ath, with all other legal political forces acting in subservience to it.
Its origins lay in July 1970 when the government under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, amid fighting the militant Iraqi Communist Party (Central Command) and dealing with Kurdish separatist militancy, offered the formation of the Front to moderate sections of the Iraqi Communists under conditions guaranteeing Ba'athist dominance over the state and political exclusivity within the armed forces. To quell Kurdish separatist sentiment an autonomy agreement was agreed to in 1970 to create Iraqi Kurdistan while attempts were made to get the Kurdistan Democratic Party to join the Front in the 1973-1974 period. This resulted in a majority section led by Mustafa Barzani continuing to rebel against the state while a smaller faction joined the Front.
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