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 council held its long-awaited first session on Thursday, following calls from Sudani to expedite the process two days before. The session lasted for around 10 minutes, with seemingly no progress made on resolving the outstanding issues between the parties.
“A meeting is scheduled to be held at the end of the week between Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani and the political parties of Kirkuk with top representatives of the Kurdistan Democratic Party [KDP] and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] in Baghdad, with discussions to be held on the developments regarding the governorship,” Mohammed al-Hafidh, an Arab member of the council, told Rudaw’s Mushtaq Ramadhan.
The PUK claims that it is entitled to the governorship of the oil-rich city, having gained the most seats - five - in December’s local polls. The party also has the backing of two Arab council members and the winner of the Christian quota.
However, its bid for the highly-coveted position is contested by the alliance of the KDP, four Arab council members, and both Turkmen council members, who have suggested rotating the post between all three components.
Sudani has facilitated three meetings between representatives of the political parties since December.
Kurdish parties in Kirkuk won seven seats in the council, with the PUK winning five and the KDP two. Three Arab parties won a combined six seats. The council’s minority Christian quota was taken by a candidate close to pro-Iran Shiite militia groups and the PUK.
Since the fall of the Baathist 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 Rakan al-Jabouri as acting governor. The city has never had a governor from the Turkmen or Christian communities.
