After the Iraqi elections, Kirkuk looks at Article 140
Attention is directed to the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, and the results that will emerge from it, because it will determine the future of this governorate, which is disputed between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, after the legislative elections in Iraq.
Iraq elections 2021
In Iraq, there is talk again about Article 140 of the Constitution , which over the past years has been a subject of mutual sensitivity among the people of different nationalities in the province, including Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.
The figures announced so far from within the province indicate that the Kurdish parties will get between 6 and 7 parliamentary seats out of the 12 seats allocated to the province, while the Arab lists will get between 3 and 4 seats, and the share of the Turkmen component will decline from 3 seats to two seats or a seat. One at worst.
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Many Iraqi political, parliamentary and cultural calls have escalated during the past months, and demanded the Iraqi central government to resolve the file of the disputed areas in Iraq, of which Kirkuk governorate constitutes the most political part.
A solution was called for, whether by consensus or through the mechanisms defined by the Iraqi constitution, because this file is one of the most important sources of tension and conflict inside Iraq, and it did not receive any government attention due to regional pressures.
Article 140
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is concerned with determining the fate of the disputed areas between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, whose area is estimated at more than 40,000 square kilometers, and extends within the governorates of Kirkuk, Mosul and Diyala, which include mixed Arab-Kurdish-Turkmen regions, while the Kurdish forces say that the component The Kurds constitute a clear population majority in it, despite the “Arabization policies” that have affected them for many years.
Throughout the past parliamentary election cycles, Kirkuk governorate witnessed a political division paralleling nationalism in the governorate. While the Kurdish candidates received half of the parliamentary seats, 6 out of 12 parliamentary seats allocated to the governorate, the candidates of the Arab and Turkmen components shared the rest of the seats equally, which was raising concerns about the possibility of its residents voting in favor of its inclusion in the Kurdistan Region in the event of a referendum unconstitutional regarding the determination of her fate.
Partition controversy
Previous electoral cycles used to define the entire province of Kirkuk as a single electoral district, in which the entire population could vote for one party or individual group list, but the current election law divided the province into three main local constituencies, a matter that observers considered as a primary and fixed national division of the number of seats allocated to each Nationality of the people of the province.
The northern electoral district of the province, which has been allocated 5 out of 12 seats, seems settled for the Kurdish component, because they constitute the absolute majority of the population in the entire region. The western constituency, which has been allocated 4 seats, is considered almost settled for Arab candidates, with a relative competition for a Kurdish candidate for one seat in it.
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As for the central central district, in which the Turkmen constitute only a relative majority, only 3 seats were allocated to it, which may mean that the number of Turkmen parliamentarians from the province may decrease from three to two, and perhaps one parliamentary seat, because the voter turnout was low in the Turkmen circles During the election day, the Kurds rallied in favor of one candidate in this constituency.
The Iraqi Turkmen activist Medhat Tubri explained in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, the Turkmen concerns about these preliminary results for the parliamentary seats in the Kirkuk governorate, “saying that there was Arab-Kurdish harmony to distribute the largest number of seats in the areas where they constitute the majority, and no attention was paid to it. To the Turkmen calls for allocating five seats to the central regions instead of three.
At the same time, the Turkmen were deprived of tens of thousands of votes because these elections are taking place without creating conditions for voters to vote abroad, as more than half of Kirkuk’s Turkmen are still outside the province.
Tobri adds, speaking to Sky News Arabia, “The Turkmen fears extend to the fear of the possibility of this bilateral consensus occurring during the meetings of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, or even during the application of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution at the stage after the formation of the new Iraqi central government, and consequently the Turkmen losing any area of Turkmen specificity. in Iraq”.
The Kurdish Peshmerga forces had controlled Kirkuk governorate throughout the years 2014-2017, at the request of the central government, during the stage of ISIS control over the central and western regions of Iraq.
But the Kurdish forces soon withdrew from it in the fall of 2017, after a coordinated attack by the Iraqi army forces in cooperation with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization factions, and the Kurdish governor of the province was removed and another of the Arab political forces was appointed, by order of the then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and without the approval of The provincial council, in which Kurdish members constitute the majority.
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The Kurds have been demanding since 2003 the annexation of the province, recalling that they constitute the majority of the province’s population, despite what they say were “Arabization campaigns” that continued throughout the rule of the Baath Party (1969-2003). While the Turkmen accuse the Kurdish and Arab parties of changing the traditional character of the city and governorate of Kirkuk, which had a Turkmen identity and majority a few decades ago.
Observers point out that the Kurdish bloc within the Iraqi parliament will condition the implementation of this constitutional article, as a prerequisite for their entry into any future government formation.