“Fifteen out of the 35 members of the Basra provincial council, from different factions, signed the demand to turn it into a region. This topic doesn’t require the Basra provincial council to convene. One third of the provincial council members have signed it, and the presidency of the provincial council has to send the demand to the presidency of the council of ministers,” Ahmed Sileti, a member of the provincial council, told Rudaw.
“There are large funds owed to Basra province by the federal government which it failed to pay. They are the petrodollar allotments, border crossing tolls, and the investment and development budget of regions since 2014,” Sileti told Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Mada.
Sileti claimed the Iraqi government owes Basra $45 billion.
Mass protests, which have spread to other southern provinces, began almost three weeks ago. Protesters are demanding better access to electricity, water, and jobs, and an end to government corruption.
Some see the solution in great autonomy from central government. Article 119 of the Iraqi constitution gives provinces the right to become a federal region.
“If the government is responsive to the demands of paying back the debts, the demand to form a region will slow down,” Aqeel al-Khalidi, a member of the economic growth committee of Basra provincial council, told Al-Mada.
During his most recent visit to Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for the request to be delayed amid growing protests. In his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Abadi blamed local officials for causing many of the ailments suffered by the province.
Abadi said part of his government’s program is strategic decentralization, but argued provincial councils have shown they are currently unable to manage their services. Taking Basra’s electricity utilities into federal control improved the service, he claimed.
“Forming federal regions is an undisputed constitution right, with the condition that new forces instead of the ones that have control, embodied by Islamist parties tied to Iran, take the helm,” judge Wael Abdullatif, a former MP and one of the main proponents for federalization of Basra, told the London-based Sharq al-Awsat newspaper.
Saad al-Hadithi, spokesperson for Abadi’s media office, told Baghdad Today: “Any step taken by any side that corresponds to legal and constitutional mechanisms, and has the needed conditions, as related to the number of voters, then the thing will be constitutional, and neither the government nor the council of ministers can stop it.”
Hadithi, however, said the process should be slowed down given the current conditions of the province.
Calls to turn Basra province into a region have been raised before, but were hampered by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Some argue federalization could hurt Iraqi unity and create trouble, citing the example of the Kurdistan Region. Others dismiss this comparison, pointing out Kurdistan’s ethno-linguistic differences to the rest of Iraq.
As Basra is the main source of Iraq’s oil wealth and home to its only seaport, Baghdad is likely afraid of losing influence.
