The Kirkuk impasse

The electoral law for the Iraqi national elections has still to be approved. A first version, presented to the Baghdad parliament after weeks of difficult negotiations between Iraqi lawmakers, was adopted after heavy pressure from both the US and the UN. It was immediately rejected by the Sunni vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi, on the grounds that the law was not giving a proper representation to the refugees, mainly Sunnis, who fled Iraq for fear of sectarian violence and are now living in neighbouring countries. The system of allocation of seats was contested by the Kurds as well, and a second version of the law was drafted, in which some seats, initially attributed to the Sunnis, are given to the Kurds.
The Arab Sunni politicians didn't attend the vote at the Baghdad parliament as a form of protest. To avoid another veto by Tariq al-Hashimi, further negotiations were held, destined to bring the different sides to a compromise.

But, to date, nothing emerged.
The opposite factions appear to adopt an attitude of no concessions, effectively paralysing the process. When he received the UN special envoy in Erbil yesterday, the president of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, said that the Kurds would not accept the present system of seats allocation, which is reducing their representation in Baghdad. If the present system was maintained, he added, the Kurds would so ask for a census to be held, to have a definitive image of the Iraqi population, and so be able to give representation accordingly to reliable datas.

This statement is a barely veiled threat on Iraq's stability.
The Iraqi government carefully avoids to hold any census. It has the potential to sparkle a new round of sectarian cleansing. The risks are to see the different factions bringing people in the contested areas to shift the demographic advantage in their favour. It would go, of course, with a campaign of intimidations, if not of violences, to push away residents from other communities.

At the heart of the problem is the city of Kirkuk, originally the reason of the endless wrangling which delayed the drafting of the electoral law.
The city lies on the fringes of the autonomous Kurdistan and is claimed by the Kurds as theirs. They ask for a census to be held to determine if Kirkuk must remain under the control of the central government or if it must be included in the Kurdistan region.
The Iraqi constitution states that the issue of the contested territories, including Kirkuk, will be solved by such a way. But the central governments refuses to implement it. After the 2003 American invasion, the Kurds came massively in the oil-rich city, and any census would give them a clear majority. A return of Kirkuk under the administration of the Kurdistan Regional Government means an important step towards their dream of an independent Kurdish state. For the central government, it would mean the loss of a strategic asset, and of a significant loss of income. At term, possibly even the fracture of the state.

Massoud Barzani is not the only one to bring the problem of the electoral law back to Kirkuk. In an interview given the 24/11/2009 Jawar Namiq, former speaker of the Kurdistan region parliament, declared that the Kurd lawmakers in Baghdad should never have approved the amended version of the electoral law, that the actual issue was Kirkuk and the way it was addressed in the law, which states that while the vote would be held, a special disposition would have the results open to negotiation during one year.
The Kurd politician Mahmoud Othman, member of the Iraqi national assembly, says that an election relying on an inaccurate system of seats repartition would have no credibility. It would be better, he says, to report the polls until a proper census is conducted.

These interventions are following efforts from the Kurdistan Regional Government to reinforce the links between the province and Kirkuk. Kurdistan's prime minister Bahram Salih went the 24/11/2009 in the town to deliver a message of support, in which he reasserted the determination of the KRG to resolve any issue accordingly to the constitution. And this despite any external interference - a clear reference to the UN attempts to bring the Kurds to accept a special status for Kirkuk. He called as well for an improved coordination between the KRG and the Kirkuk's administration.
The same day was announced a project to build a railroad between Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk. A way to bring the contested town closer to Kurdistan.

These moves are provoking bitter opposition from the Arabs and Turkmens from Kirkuk, who fear to be marginalised and are worrying about the Kurds nationalist claims. Yesterday, the Arab parties called vice president al-Hashimi to reject the electoral law if the present version was not amended, and said they would boycott the polls unless some guarantees were given to the minorities and a special status given to Kirkuk. One of them, Sheikh Abdullah Sami al-Hassi, said that they would even take to the streets to oppose the law.
This worrying statement mirrors the one made by a leader of al-Sawha, former Sunni insurgents turned pro-governmental militias, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, who accused the Kurds of stealing Kirkuk.

The situation is so in a dangerous impasse. Today, the Sunni parliamentarians didn't attend the assembly, meaning there wasn't enough representatives to hold a session. As a result, the contentious electoral law can't even be discussed.