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The Iraqi Parliament will soon embark on a daunting task of re-deliberating on the controversial Provincial Election Law. The law is meant to loosen the grip of the central government over the provinces and regions. The law was passed in July, after the Kurdish fraction and some members of the United Iraqi Alliance, including the two Deputies of the President of the Council, had walked out of the session.

The Presidency Council did not ratify the law, on the grounds that secret balloting is against the new Iraqi Constitution, and disregarding a major component of the council is against the principle of sharing in the new Iraq.

Three major points in Article 24 of the law are preventing a consensus:

1. The Article postpones the election in Kirkuk Province; meanwhile the provincial and administrative authorities of the governorate must be divided equally between the Kurds, Arabs, Turcomans with 32% each and leaving 4% for the Christians. The Kurds see this unfair since they, according to the 2005 elections, hold more than that percentage in the council of the governorate. Kurds say, the election should be held at the same time in Kirkuk as any other Iraqi province.
   
   
2. The Article asks for troops advancing from middle and south of Iraq to take the responsibility for the security of the Province. Because the arabization of Kirkuk under Saddam is still fresh in the memory of the Kurds, they see this as nothing more than adding to the ethnic tension, especially now the Arabs and Turcomans claim that their rights are being infringed.
   
   
3. This Article protects itself by stating it ‘cannot be proportionately interpreted' or dealt with, and ‘any other text cannot take away the authorities of this Article.' The Kurds see this as a violation of Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. According to Article 140, the Iraqi Government should "act expeditiously to take measures to remedy the injustice caused by the previous regime's practices in altering the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk"...normalization, census, and referendum should be held in Kirkuk and the disputed areas by a date not exceeding 31st of December 2007. Knowing that non of these things have occurred at all, Kirkuk and other disputed areas remain potential hotspots of violence unless a fair and functional mechanism encouraged by US or UN is in place.

Since the Kurds retained neutral grounds in the peak of the Sunni-Shiet war and have been of great help to US in terms of national reconciliation and holding security in many parts of Iraq, they see this article as blackmail.

It is worth mentioning that amid all this, the United Nation's Assistance Mission (UNAMI) and the Secretary General's representative to Iraq, Steffan De Mistura, are trying to help in resolving the issues connected to Article 140. However UN assistance is not binding and not enforceable due to the mandate. Amid all this and the set back US has witnessed along the past years in Iraq, the US couldn't, or was not willing to, unilaterally resolve these issues as well.

What adds more tension is the latest Iraqi Army movement'The Good Tidings of Benevolence' in the Diyala Province, which initiated political skirmish in Khanakin, ‘another disputed city,' with whose identification as part of the Kurdish Region, say the the Kurds, even the Saddam regime did not have problem.

Kirkuk has always been the floating point between the Iraqi centre and the Kurdish front. Although no major violence has occurred in the city, the commitment of Iraq's leaders to sharing and reconciliation is haunted profoundly by the past ethnic grievances. Today's high oil-prices, greed parallel to proxy leverages in Iraq, and regional tensions could devastatingly aggravate the situation further. So far it has been peaceful, but it needs serious effort from US and the International Community to sustain peace if they want to think of Iraq as a major, peaceful economic collaborator and energy partner in near future.

Sarwar Amin is an Iraqi national and has recently completed his Masters at the University of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.


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