SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Iraq is moving toward federalism as a solution to its volatile religious and ethnic mix, believes Sadiq al-Rikabi, a member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives and former political advisor to Iraq’s prime minister.
“Federalism is a final destination for all the Iraqi components. When federalism becomes the final solution it means no competition between Iraqi components,” Rikabi told the inaugural edition of the annual Sulaimani Forum in the Kurdistan Region last week.
He said that the country’s majority ruling Shiites have retreated from their position of looking for federalism, the large Sunni minority refuses the principle, and the autonomous Kurds in the north exceed federalism and look toward independence.
“These three positions deepened the distrust among the components,” said Rikabi, the former advisor to the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
He said that the two visions inside the premier’s Dawa party are: Fear that federalism will lead to the country’s partition; and that, instead of creating ethnic or religious regions, Iraq should be divided into several federal provinces.
In February last year, Maliki openly said: "We will not allow the establishment of federalism in the Iraqi provinces because it will be a cause for tearing the country.”
“We have to convince all Iraqis that their interests are in one Iraq,” according to Rikabi.
Barham Salih, former prime minister of the Kurdistan Region, said that “Iraqis yet have to accept the idea of federalism.”
Fuad Hussein, chief of staff of Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani, disagrees that Maliki’s party accepts federalism.
“Still in Baghdad, the dominant ideology is centralism and not federalism,” he said, adding that federalism would “help the unity of the country.”
According to Iraq expert Reidar Visser, Maliki has never publicly backed the idea of federalism.
“I have never heard Maliki specifically advocate more than a Kurdish region, and he has used a lot of energy to fend off Dawa people from Basra, who wanted their own region,” he told Rudaw.
