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. During the meeting, Rebwar Taha of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was nominated for the governorship of Kirkuk, and Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hafidh, from the Arab Qiyada Alliance, as the council’s chief.
The meeting drew the ire of some Arab parties and the Turkmen bloc, which did not participate in the meeting.
“The decision made on August 10 at al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad to appoint a governor and a local government for Kirkuk without notifying all parties, and in the absence of Turkmen representatives and some Arabs and the KDP, is not legal, problematic, and not on the right course,” KDP spokesperson Mahmoud Mohammed said in a statement on Monday.
“We believe that what took place cannot be the right solution to overcome the issues and problems of Kirkuk,” he added.
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.
Jabouri slammed the session in a statement, saying that his alliance was not informed to attend the session. He also said that the Arab members who attended the council meeting had committed “treason” towards their community, vowing that his party will “use all legal and judicial measures” to obtain its entitlement.
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 was 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.
On Monday the Turkmen Front, which has two seats on the council, filed a complaint against the formation of Kirkuk’s local government in the session, according to Mohammed Samaan, the spokesperson for the party.
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.
