The winning parties of the Kirkuk provincial council elections have been at loggerheads for around seven months as the absence of a clear majority at December’s polls has hindered the process of appointing the next governor and forming the local administration.
The Iraqi premier stressed the importance of completing the formation of Kirkuk’s local administration through a consensus between all parties and not marginalizing any components in the decision-making process, according to a statement from his office.
“The government's success in holding local elections in Kirkuk, after the difficulty of holding them since 2005, represents an important step towards establishing stability in the province,” Sudani’s office cited the premier as saying during the meeting.
The Arab bloc in Kirkuk’s provincial council, which has six members, announced on Monday that they plan to hold onto the governorship of the oil-rich province.
The bloc said during a press conference that Kirkuk has "enjoyed security and stability and witnessed a boom in construction and building when the Arab component took over the administration of the province in previous years, so we insist on taking over the position of governor.”
The Arab bloc’s position came a day after Kirkuk’s Kurdish parties announced in a joint statement that the governor’s position must be filled by a Kurd.
Kirkuk is a multi-ethnic city home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen. The city was under joint administration before 2014, when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew in the face of the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
The Iraqi federal government’s return to power in Kirkuk in 2017 meant the province would have a non-Kurdish governor for the first time since 2003 - Rakan al-Jabouri, a Sunni politician and head of the Arab Alliance has served as Kirkuk’s acting governor since.
