“Saido Khairi was appointed by the provincial council as the mayor of Shingal (Sinjar) by securing the majority vote” Iirvan Mahdi, a member of Nineveh provincial council told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The council had convened earlier in the day to cast their votes and appoint the mayor.
“Five people had nominated themselves for the position of mayor of Shingal, they are all Yazidi Kurds,” Mohammed Kakayi, another member of the council, told Rudaw.
Eight criteria were set for the candidates, including the stipulations of no affiliation with the Baath regime or membership in any militia or security force at the time of their nomination.
Ahmad Dubardani, a member of the council from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told Rudaw that the United Nineveh coalition, composed of the KDP and Sunni blocs, boycotted the meeting as they were not included.
The appointment of the mayor of Shingal was one of the points of the Shingal Agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government. Shingal is a disputed or Article 140 area that is claimed by both Baghdad and Erbil.
Three years after the agreement was signed, concerns remain regarding security, lack of services and infrastructure and the absence of an administrative structure in the city.
The disputed areas stretch across several provinces including Nineveh, Diyala, Salahaddin and Kirkuk. Article 140, which remains unimplemented in the Iraqi constitution, provides a process for the KRG and Iraqi federal government to settle the disputes with locals.
Yazidis in Shingal were subjected to countless heinous atrocities and massacres when the Islamic State (ISIS) captured the city in 2014, bringing destruction to many villages and towns populated by the minority group and committing genocide.
