KurdistanObserver.com

Kirkuk Braced For Showdown As Iraq Election Looms

By Aref Mohammed

KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Kurdish leaders scrambled on Sunday to get over 200,000 Kurds reinstated to Kirkuk's electoral roll, highlighting tension ahead of this week's ballot in one of Iraq's most volatile and important cities.

"We filed a complaint days ago and they only returned one person out of 218,000 to the voter roll," Razgar Ali, a senior Kurdish politician in Kirkuk, told reporters on Saturday.

Hussein al-Hindawi, chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), told Reuters on Sunday that the IECI had reviewed the Kurds' complaint and all the names removed from the list would now be able to vote on Dec. 15.

With Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs, both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, as well as Arab Christians, living side by side, Kirkuk is a flashpoint for sectarian tensions, stoked by its proximity to over 20 percent of Iraq's vast oil reserves.

Campaign posters plaster Kirkuk, including those of Sunni Arabs, who largely stayed away from January's landmark election.

They have decided to contest this ballot, which will elect the first full-time government since Saddam Hussein was deposed, and are campaigning across the city.

"These elections will see a high Sunni turnout that will change the balance of power in Iraq because, we Sunnis will try to elect a Sunni list to try and rule again," said Ahmed Hasan, a 31-year-old oil engineer.

The lack of reliable opinion polls make the result here difficult to predict. But Kurdish politicians privately say they hope to win three to five of the nine parliamentary seats up for grabs in Kirkuk's Tamim province in Thursday's poll.

Securing a majority would boost their campaign to add Kirkuk to Kurdistan. It could also aid claims for the return of property taken from them by Saddam Hussein.

A mechanism to reinstate property was agreed under the new constitution, but it has not made much progress so far.

"We want Kirkuk back. That is fair," Hero Talabani, wife of Iraq's Kurdish president Jalal Talabani, said last week.

ARABISATION

The former regime forced thousands of Kurds from the city and replaced them with Arabs and although the Arabisation of Kirkuk pre-dates Saddam, he went at it with a brutal intensity.

Recent reports of Arabs being targeted for arrest and removal by Kurdish security police has reinforced distrust. Kurdish parties are also accused of relocating thousands of supporters to Kirkuk to boost their electoral clout.

"Kurds don't trust the Arabs. Arabs don't trust the Turkmen," said Shwan Dawoodi, editor-in-chief of Hawal, a Kurdish-owned newspaper headquartered in Kirkuk. "Unless you solve this problem, nothing else will work, even if Kirkuk becomes part of Kurdistan in an independent province."

Kirkuk will hold a referendum to decide its future by December 2007. Kurdish neighbours are nervous.

"We could lose Kirkuk," said Sadettin Ergec of the Iraqi Turkmen Front. "Kirkuk is a national treasure and we reject a referendum being held there only," he said on Tuesday.

With the stakes so high, all political parties have mobilized to maximise voter turnout.

"Everyone will participate this time round. Security is relatively good, especially if we compare it to the previous elections," said Nour Abdullah, a teacher and a Turkmen, who said he will vote for former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Security and the basic provision of public services like water and electricity are a big issue in Kirkuk, in common with the entire country. But voters are still expected to back political lists that represent their ethnic group.

Kurds do not have a lot of choice but to vote for the Kurdish list, which has co-opted all the main Kurdish parties with the exception of the Kurdish Islamic Union, which broke away and will campaign for itself.

Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, could score well among voters drawn to his reputation as a hardliner on security. Opponents certainly see him as a threat: many Allawi campaign posters have already been torn down in Kirkuk.