ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A day after Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hafidh was nominated to lead the Kirkuk provincial council, his Sunni Arab Sovereignty party announced on Sunday that he has been removed from their ranks after he participated in the disputed meeting.
“Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hafidh is no longer a member of the Sovereignty Party,” Khalid al-Mafraji, Sovereignty party spokesperson, said during a press conference in Kirkuk.
Nine out of the 16 members of the Kirkuk provincial council held a meeting at al-Rasheed hotel in Baghdad on Saturday evening, hours before a deadline to form the province’s local administration, with Hafidh emerging as the consensus pick as council chief.
“This decision was taken yesterday by the leadership of the Sovereignty,” the party’s spokesperson said, explaining that they didn’t want him to participate in the meeting.
Sovereignty is a part of the Qiyada Alliance, an Arab bloc in the provincial council.
As a result of the vote, Rebwar Taha of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was nominated for the governorship of Kirkuk.
Mafraji said because they were aware of Hafidh’s stance that they had actively tried to dissuade Arab members of the council, including Hafidh, from attending the meeting. So, the Sovereignty party considers Hafidh’s actions to be unilateral and self-taken.
All five PUK council members, three Arab members, and the winner of the Christian minority quota were in attendance. No council members were present from the Turkmen parties, Kurdistan Democratic Party, and former acting governor Rakan al-Jabouri’s Arab Alliance.
“What happened today was an exclusion and outcasting of the representatives of the Arab Alliance… we were not informed to attend this session,” Jabouri said on Saturday, saying the Arab members who attended the council meeting had committed “treason” towards their community.
Jabouri vowed that his party will “use all legal and judicial measures” to obtain its entitlement.
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.
For its part, the Arab bloc said in a statement just prior to the meeting that they would reject any session of the body which does not include representatives of all of the winning parties and components. All six Arab members of the council signed the statement - three of whom later attended the session.
Jabouri added that the Turkmens, “a main component of this city,” also were excluded and their legal entitlement to be included in forming the local administration of Kirkuk were disregarded. No Turkmen council members were present at the meeting in Baghdad, nor were they given any senior positions. This could leave the nominations open to a challenge.
The Turkmen Front, which has two seats on the council, said during a press conference on Sunday that they will also pursue legal action through Iraq’s judiciary after being left out of the meeting.
"Those who believe that the Kirkuk problem can be solved by distributing positions are delusional. The Kirkuk problem is based on strengthening trust between the components, and what happened yesterday is a sabotage of this trust," said Hassan Turan, head of the Turkmen Front.
Because of Kirkuk’s status as a multi-ethnic, disputed province with a history of demographic change, the provincial council election law dictates that “power shall be distributed in a fair representation which guarantees the participation of the province’s components regardless of the results of the elections.”
The Turkmen party had suggested rotating the governorship between the main three components.
Additionally, Tran said the meeting was conducted outside of Kirkuk in secret from other members of the council, and violated the agreements reached following the provincial council’s first session which obligated the parties to negotiate before holding a second session; therefore, the party will “resort to the Iraqi judiciary” to achieve justice for the Turkmen community.
The absence of a clear majority after the December polls and disputes between the parties hindered the process of appointing the governor and forming the local administration for over seven months. Kirkuk is the only Iraqi province yet to finalize its government.
Ultimately, nominations for governors must be approved by the Iraqi president.
