Iraq
The Peshmerga statue in Kirkuk used to hold the flag of the Kurdistan Region prior to October 16, 2017 but has been replaced with the Iraqi flag since. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Arab candidates who emerged victorious from Kirkuk’s provincial council elections announced on Saturday that they will be joining forces for a unified Arab bloc in hopes of securing the governorship of the oil-rich province.
“We announce forming a unified coalition named the Arab bloc at the Kirkuk provincial council to protect the entitlements of our voters and achieve peaceful coexistence between all the components,” Rakan al-Jabouri, Kirkuk’s acting governor, said in a video statement while standing next to the other five Arab candidates who have obtained seats on the council.
Kirkuk saw the highest turnout across Iraq for provincial elections on December 18, with 65 percent of eligible voters casting ballots. This was the first time since 2005 that Kirkuk held provincial elections.
The Arab Alliance, Uruba Alliance, and Qiyada Alliance won a combined six seats, giving Arabs the second-highest number of seats after the Kurds, who obtained seven spots on the 16-seat council.
Jabouri received the second-highest number of votes out of all the candidates in Kirkuk, topped only by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Nashat Shahwez.
The Arab bloc is expected to form an alliance with the two winners from the Turkmen parties, forming a strong eight-seat opposition to the Kurds’ ambition to return a Kurdish governor to the province.
The two Kurdish parties have seven seats on the council. The winner of the minority quota, Injeel al-Barwari, is reportedly linked to the PUK, which could mean the council is evenly split if the Kurdish parties can work together, but that is uncertain as they are feuding over economic and governance issues in the Kurdistan Region and have not yet announced any cooperation in Kirkuk.
Jabouri, a Sunni politician and head of the Arab coalition, has served as Kirkuk’s acting governor for the past six years. He was the first non-Kurdish governor of the province since 2003 and was installed in the post after the federal government returned to power in Kirkuk in 2017.
In their campaigns leading up to the elections, the PUK, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the more recently-established New Generation Movement (NGM) all vowed to remove Jabouri from the position and set a new governor themselves.
Kirkuk is a multiethnic city home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, as well as an Assyrian minority. It was under joint administration before 2014, when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew in the face of a brazen offensive by the Islamic State (ISIS) group threatening the city. Kurds held Kirkuk until October 16, 2017, when Iraqi forces retook control and expelled the Peshmerga forces after the province took part in Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum.
Two amendments made to the provincial council elections law in May, which apply only to Kirkuk, make it difficult to predict who will fill the province’s governor seat next.
One amendment states that “the results of the elections shall not act as a legal or administrative basis to determine the future of Kirkuk province.”
Kirkuk’s future, whether it joins the Kurdistan Region or not, is supposed to be decided through a process set out in the constitution that includes a referendum.
“Power shall be distributed in a fair representation which guarantees the participation of the province’s components regardless of the results of the elections,” reads another amendment.
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