ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kirkuk provincial council is set to hold “an extraordinary” session tomorrow to elect a replacement for Mohammed Samaan a month after he took a cabinet post in October, a council member told Rudaw on Tuesday, confirming that the candidates are from the Turkish-backed Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF).
"We were notified via the council [WhatsApp] group that an extraordinary council session will take place at 4:00 pm tomorrow,” Parwreen Fatih told Rudaw’s Nahro Mohammed. Fatih represents the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which holds five seats out of a 16-seat council.
Mardin Gokkaya, ITF’s political bureau member, and Qahtan al-Wandawi, the head of the party’s Kirkuk branch, are the proposed candidates for the post.
“Wandawi is the main candidate,” Fatih noted, adding that “changes remain possible until the final moments.”
Governorship of the province is based on a rotational agreement signed between the PUK and two Arab parties in 2024. Both sides agreed to a two-year split of the post, but subsequent political arrangements incorporated the ITF, with the Arab parties agreeing to give eight months of their share to the Turkmen party.
Samaan, an ITF party member, took his turn in April, when PUK’s Rebwar Taha resigned after two years. The agreement dedicates the last year of the post to the Arab parties in the multi-ethnic province starting from January.
He was obliged to renounce the post in October after being elected state minister in the Iraqi government when Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi filled the vacant positions of his cabinet.
Despite a law prohibiting government employees from holding two state positions simultaneously, Samaan continued to lay claim on the Kirkuk governorship, frequently posting on his social media about receiving guests from his former office. He stated in a press conference in late October that he would not resign unless the provincial council selected a replacement from the Turkmen group.
The Iraqi premier’s office last week stated that the premier "directed the expedition of resolving the Kirkuk governor selection issue and ending the administrative vacuum, in accordance with the agreements concluded among the province's components," during a meeting with several of Kirkuk’s provincial leaders.
Meanwhile, the Arab parties have already made preparations to select a candidate after the 2024 agreement tilts the turn to them.
Muhaymin Hamdani, a lawmaker from the Sunni-led Taqadum party, which jointly leads the Leadership Alliance in the Kirkuk provincial council, is one of the candidates.
"Three candidates are on the negotiation table, and Muhaymin Hamdani is the strongest,” Ibrahim Hafiz, the head of the council from the Leadership Alliance share, told Rudaw’s Gashaw Khalid on Saturday.
He further noted that they have held several meetings with the PUK on the subject, but that no “final agreement” has been reached yet.
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