Jalal Talabani’s brother-in-law confirms his death threat to a leading local journalist after the reporter questioned why the PUK supplied the grave of Talabani’s wife’s father with round-the-clock electricity, when most living Kurds only have a few hours per day.

With President Barzani’s son Masrour jailed in Austria on assault charges for trying to kick a dissident to death, Talabani himself trying to imprison the editor of the region’s independent paper for reporting on corruption, and now this, the schism between what the Kurdistan Regional Government says it is and what it is becoming under an opaque and unresponsive leadership is growing wider. The self-described bastion of democracy is becoming anything but.