ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has yet to decide on a candidate for the Kirkuk governor position amid a political impasse in the province, a party official said on Tuesday. “To reach an agreement and form Kirkuk’s local government, we will await the efforts of Iraq’s prime minister who is set to meet with the Kurdish members of the council,” Sherzad Samad, head of the elections office for the PUK in Kirkuk and Salahaddin provinces told Rudaw. Samad emphasized that the PUK is entitled to the governor’s position as they have the highest number of seats in the Kirkuk provincial council. “We have not officially chosen anyone,” he said as a response to reports claiming otherwise. He said that his party “wants all the ethnic components to participate in the administration of Kirkuk.” The council first convened earlier this month at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani. Rakan al-Jabouri, a Sunni politician and head of the council’s Arab coalition, has served as Kirkuk’s acting governor for the past six years. He presided over the first provincial council meeting. Kirkuk held provincial council elections last December, but the absence of a clear majority and disagreements between the multi-ethnic province’s different components have blocked the formation of the local administration, the selection of a governor, and filling the positions on the council. PM Sudani has presided over three meetings attended by the political parties that have representation in the council in the disputed province. Kurdish parties won seven seats in the council- five to the PUK and two to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). A coalition of three Arab parties won six seats. The council’s minority Christian quota seat was taken by a candidate close to pro-Iran Shiite militia groups and the PUK. Since the fall of the Ba’athist regime in 2003, Kurds and Arabs have dominated the top post. The governor was a Kurd until October 2017 when the federal forces returned to the province after the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum and appointed Jabouri as acting governor. The city has never had a governor from the Turkmen or Christian communities.
