Protests mount over new Kirkuk governor
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish and Arab parties on Saturday protested the appointment of Rebwar Taha as governor of Kirkuk and called for a new agreement on the formation of the local government that would satisfy all parties.
Khalida Khalil, spokesperson for the Barzani Headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said that the governor of Kirkuk should be a “moderate” Kurd who is approved by all the Kurdish parties, and that the posts of the provincial council chief and deputy must also satisfy all the components of Kirkuk.
“Our protest is against the violation of the national agreement and the implementation of a strange agenda that aims to create problems and imbalances… Agreements that are made in a misleading manner are doomed to fail sooner or later,” Khalil wrote in a statement on X.
Taha, a Kurdish politician from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), took the oath of office on Wednesday, a day after receiving the presidential decree from Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid approving his appointment as governor.
He is not, however, a unanimous pick. Council members from the Turkmen Front, the KDP, and the Arab Alliance did not attend the session when Taha was nominated and declared that the meeting was illegal. The Arab and Turkmen parties announced they will challenge in court the decisions that came out of the disputed council meeting.
Taha is a Kurd, but does not have the backing of the KDP. The PUK has five seats on the council and the KDP has two. Following the vote in December, the KDP repeatedly called for the appointment of a Kurdish governor with no strong affiliation to any party and said the new administration must be formed on the basis of a national consensus.
“We will never compromise on the Kurdishness of Kirkuk, because Kirkuk is the heart of Kurdistan, just as we will never compromise on the Kurdishness of other Kurdish areas outside the Kurdistan Region’s administration,” Khalil said.
A few days before her statement, Qais al-Khazali, a senior member of the Fatih Coalition and leader of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said in an interview with local media that the PUK “acknowledged the Arabness of Kirkuk” during their discussions leading up to last week’s council meeting.
Kirkuk’s former acting Governor Rakan al-Jabouri, leader of the Arab Alliance, on Saturday denied reports that suggested he would be joining the alliance with the PUK and replace Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hafidh as provincial council chief.
“What is being circulated in the media about the provincial council chief position has no basis, even in secret. Everyone knows that we refuse to participate in any agreement unless we formulate it from the beginning,” said Jabouri.
Hafidh, a member of the Sunni Arab Sovereignty party, was appointed as Kirkuk provincial council chief during last week’s meeting. His party subsequently announced that Hafidh was removed from their ranks after he participated in the disputed meeting.
Jabouri, who served as Kirkuk’s acting governor from October 2017 up until Taha’s appointment, claimed that the Arab population of Kirkuk does not understand the magnitude of the impact the current administration will have on them.
He asserted that the PUK can now shut down any proposals from the Arab council members, including the three who sided with them in last week’s session, since the party has five members in the alliance and the backing of Injeel al-Barwari, winner of the Christian quota, and will outnumber the Arab members by an absolute majority.
The Turkmen Front has also denied reports they would be joining the PUK's alliance and have said that they will wait for a ruling from the court.
Parwin Fatih, a PUK member of the council, denied the possibility of a new agreement.
“Everything is over and there will be no agreements, and anything said in that regard has no basis,” Fatih told Rudaw.
The formation of Kirkuk’s provincial government took more than seven months, hindered by the absence of a clear majority after the December polls and disputes between the parties.
Because of Kirkuk’s status as a multi-ethnic, disputed province with a history of demographic change, the provincial council election law dictates that “power shall be distributed in a fair representation which guarantees the participation of the province’s components regardless of the results of the elections.”