Iraq’s parliament recently agreed to hold provincial council elections across Iraq on April 1, 2020, including the disputed province of Kirkuk, which has long enjoyed a special status and has not held a provincial election since 2005.
Under new amendments to the election law, Kirkuk’s voter register is to be based on food ration cards and Civil Status Identification Cards. Local Kurds who have had their documents transferred to other cities as a result of displacement and Arabization would be disqualified.
Iraq’s deposed president Saddam Hussein implemented Arabization policies between the 1970s and 90s to ethnically cleanse the disputed territories of their Kurdish communities and settled Arab families in their place.
Although many of these policies were reversed after Saddam’s removal from power in 2003, Arab settlers have since returned to stake their claim to the land, while Kurdish officials have been removed from positions of influence.
Kurdish parties insist the election register should instead rely on the 1957 Iraqi census, which pre-dates the Arabization policy and better reflects Kirkuk’s ethnic population.
Almas Fazil, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) member of the Iraqi parliament, has called for the provincial election in Kirkuk to be delayed until the law is amended.
“According to Article 4 of the law, the [Iraqi] Council of Ministers could exclude and delay a province from the elections,” she told Rudaw English on Thursday.
“We will start appealing the law in the parliament and pursue other legal procedures later,” Fazil added.
The Provincial Elections Law is still progressing through parliament and has not yet been submitted to the Iraqi presidency.
A group of Kurdish political parties including the PUK gathered on Wednesday in Kirkuk to discuss the Provincial Elections Law and put forth steps to appeal it before it is signed by the President of Iraq Barham Salih – also a Kurd of the PUK.
“This problem has existed in Kirkuk since 2005. Arabs and Turkmen have doubts about Kirkuk’s voter list. They think it requires revising through a mechanism that depends on food ration cards and IDs,” Rebwar Taha, another PUK MP in the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw English.
The Turkmen community has been particularly vocal about what it calls “Kurdish demographic change”.
Turkmen Front leader Arshad Salehi claimed in mid-July that Kurdish leaders have settled as many as 600,000 Kurds from Erbil, Sulaimani, and neighboring countries in Kirkuk to tip the demographic balance in their favor.
The Kurdish side believes one potential solution is to amend the law so that Kurds acknowledged by the Article 140 Investigative Committee as belonging to Kirkuk are included in the election register to “guarantee” their right to vote.
Kurdish parties are now forming a joint committee so they have a common voice on political matters in the disputed province.
“We must be united this time in Baghdad and Kirkuk,” said Mohammed Jalil, head of the Komal election office.
Even if Kurdish sides fail to stop the law’s amendment, they should “get together to form a joint Kurdish list in order to face all the challenges”, he added.
A Gorran official, who spoke to Rudaw on condition of anonymity, said the party may call on other Kurdish parties to boycott the Kirkuk provincial election if the amendment passes.
Kurdish residents of Kirkuk are also concerned about the weight of the Kurdish vote if the election takes place on April 1.
“We are in favor of elections. We will stand by our Kurdish [ethnic identity]. But it is not in our interests if the election is held at this stage,” said Salar Star, a shopkeeper in Kirkuk.
Haval Abdulsamad, a Kurdish resident, said Kurdish parties should not boycott the election. However, he is not convinced an election will bring about change in the troubled province.
Due to rivalries between Turkmen, Arabs, and Kurds, provincial elections have not taken place in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk since 2005.
As many as 900,000 voters are eligible to vote across the province.
Since 2003, Iraq has allowed Kirkuk to hold just one single provincial election due to its “exceptional status”.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) did not stand candidates in Kirkuk during the May 12, 2018 Iraqi parliamentary election. It said the city was “occupied” and demanded the normalization of its politics and security before it would agree to take part.
Kirkuk was seized by Iraqi Army and Hashd al-Shaabi forces on October 16, 2017 after Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew in the face of a major assault.
Oil-rich Kirkuk is a flashpoint between Erbil and Baghdad, which both stake a claim to the province. It is one of the disputed territories and as such falls under Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, drafted to resolve the dispute but never implemented.
Under Article 140, a census and referendum should have been held by 2007 to determine whether Kirkuk should join the autonomous Kurdistan Region or remain a federal Iraqi province.
With additional reporting by Hardi Mohammed
