The meetings of the Kirkuk provincial council have been disrupted due to absence of a member of the Rashid Hotel Front, which formed the government, did not participate in the past three sessions and the boycott front is still not willing to participate in the meetings.
The last meeting of the council that reached the legal quorum was held on November 5, 2024, since then the council has not been able to meet the legal quorum.
"We have not been able to hold the previous three meetings of the council due to incomplete quorum. Apart from the boycott front, another member of the council has not attended the meetings due to illness," said Nashat Shawez, head of security committee of Kirkuk Provincial Council.
Zahir Anwar Aasi, who was part of the front that formed the Kirkuk local administration in August at the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, belongs to the Arab coalition and did not attend the meetings. The coalition has only one of the 16 seats in the council.
The 16 members of the Kirkuk provincial council, divided into seven coalitions and political parties, seven members have boycotted the formation of the local government because they consider the election of the governor and council speaker illegal and filed a complaint in the Administrative Court.
"In total, we have held nine council meetings so far... Now the council meetings have stopped, we are waiting for our member to recover and resume the meetings," Shawez added.
According to the law, the council meeting requires the presence of 50 +1 members, which means that the Kirkuk provincial council will need nine members, but now the council can only gather eight members.
The 16-member Kirkuk provincial council is divided into two opposing fronts (nine of the government or the Rashid Hotel Front, versus seven of the opposition).
Both fronts have been unable to carry out their duties properly due to conflict and boycotts, including resolving all administrative positions, approving the budget and distributing service projects to the regions under their responsibility.
Salwa Mafraji, a member of the council from the boycott front, told KirkukNow on September 25, “If the court decision is in favor of the Rashid Hotel meeting and legitimize the Kirkuk local government, then we will return to negotiations with other factions. To participate in the meetings of the council, as elected members, we are committed to participating because our supporters demand service.”
Four separate complaints have been filed by the boycott front against the formation of the Kirkuk local government, two of which were decided in favor of the front that formed the government.
On December 24, the Baghdad Administrative Court rejected Mafraji's complaint in favor of the Rashid Hotel Front, saying it had no legal basis.
In the complaint, she demanded that the republican decree appointing Rebwar Taha as governor of Kirkuk be annulled because he took the post in an illegal meeting.
Although the complaint has been settled, with the rejection of her request, she is still unwilling to return to council meetings.
On the same day, the Administrative Court rejected another complaint filed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) against the illegality of the August 10 meeting at the Rashid Hotel.
A day before the rejection of the complaint, Hassan Shekhani, head of the KDP faction in the Kirkuk provincial council, said, "We have always been in the council, but to participate in the meetings of the council, meetings are not held yet, if the decision is made to meet the council, we will wait for court verdict and our leadership to decide.”
Two other complaints against the formation of the Kirkuk local administration are still pending in the Administrative Court.
The two complaints were filed by the Iraqi Turkmen Front ITF and Rakan Saeed, the former governor of Kirkuk.
"In fact, we wished that all members of the council to participate in the meetings, because with the 16 members we can represent the people of Kirkuk," said Shawez from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK faction.
"Legally, we were able to collect the necessary votes to hold the meeting, which was nine members, in this context, we continued the meetings of the council," he added.
"The meetings have been suspended because the council member is not participating due to illness.”
KirkukNow could not get the opinion of Zahir Anwar Aasi about his absence, but according to more than one source from the provincial council and the Ouruba coalition, he is unsatisfied with the distribution of posts in the Kirkuk local administration and his party’s shares.
According to the council's rules of procedure and provincial law, any council member who is absent from four consecutive sessions or one-fourth of the council's sessions in four months, without just cause, is considered to have resigned.
"According to the rules of procedure, the speaker can take legal action, but since we and the speaker have not taken legal action, our goal is not to spread further tensions and calm the situation, hoping those members who boycotted meetings join back.”
