SULAIMANIYA, (Southern Kurdistan): Iraq’s Kurds have a lot at stake in elections next week, and one message they are sending to rivals ahead of the vote is that they don’t want to see another government led by Islamist Shi’ites emerge.

“I am a Kurd to my bones, and in a fundamentalist Kurdish state I will not live a single day,” said Hero Talabani, the wife of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who leads one of the two parties that dominate the northern Kurdish region.

Persecuted for decades by Saddam Hussein, the Kurds performed strongly in Iraq’s first post-war elections in January, securing nearly 30 percent of the vote and eventually forming a government with the winning Shi’ite Islamist alliance.

When the country holds elections for a new parliament on Dec. 15, the Kurds, who make up a fifth of the population, are hoping to at least protect their political gains. If they again emerge as kingmakers they will think twice about signing up with a staunchly Islamist ally again, particularly as religious tensions deepen by the day.

And if anyone has any doubts about their position, they are holding onto the threat of secession—the long-held Kurdish dream of separating from Iraq to form their own country.