Kurd-Arab battle for power unlikely to end

Ninewa province has been ruled by Kurds since 2005 when its Arab majority boycotted elections, this time they are participating in the contest.

US soldiers walk past election posters outside the former Saddam general hospital in Mosul yesterday. In Iraq's most violent province, the election could help bring peace or stoke fresh conflict between Arabs and Kurds.Show less

NINEWA // While much attention will be focused on who wins in Baghdad, perhaps the most critical contest in tomorrow's provincial elections will take place in Ninewa province, some 300km north of the capital, on the fault line where Arab Iraq meets Kurdish Iraq.

The stark divide between Kurds and Arabs has left parts of Ninewa and much of its major city, Mosul, in tatters. It remains one of the most dangerous places in the country, with bombings and shootings a regular occurrence despite the city being flooded with US and Iraqi forces. Ninewa's Arab majority boycotted the 2005 elections and the province has been governed by the Kurds, a minority group, ever since. This time, however, Arab parties are involved, in what has been an acrimonious political contest.

On one side of the divide is the Kurdish alliance, known as the 236 list, on the other is al Hadbaa, list number 475, a Mosul-specific coalition led by Osama and Atheel Nujayfi. The Hadbaa list has campaigned on an unashamedly ethnic manifesto that Mosul is an Arab city and that Arabs should govern its 1.2 million inhabitants. "There is extremism on both sides," said Yonadam Kanna, the head of the independent Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), whose party is hoping to win one of the 37 council seats being contested. "There is a real problem between the Kurds and the Arabs. What is at stake is, will we always be a hostage to history and religion and racism, or will we be able to co-operate and share power?"

Somewhere in between the Hadbaa list and the Kurdish lie myriad smaller political parties, some independent, some ostensibly independent but in truth allied with the larger groups. And there is also the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), in effect the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq. Although Sunni Arab, the IIP does not see eye to eye with the more secular Hadbaa list, thereby dividing the Arab vote. "Mosul's problems all come from the Kurdish and Arab political parties," said a Sunni Arab sheikh from Tal Kief, on the outskirts of Mosul. He spoke on condition of anonymity saying he feared retribution from either ethnic group. "All of the killings can be sourced to these parties, it's all political. They kill one another and then say it was al Qa'eda."

He said the election was unlikely to bring a solution despite hopes that violence will cease if Arabs are fairly represented on the provincial council. "If Nujayfi wins the Kurds will say they have been cheated and they will make trouble," the Tal Kief sheikh said. "If the Kurds win, the Arabs will feel cheated and will make trouble. Mosul will be caught in the middle and it is the people who will continue to suffer."

The Kurd-Arab battle for power has been played out in a thousand small but significant ways. Ninewa officially lies outside of the Kurdish autonomous zone but Kurdish Peshmerga rather than government security services work the many local checkpoints. Arabs view the Kurdish forces as a militia and fear they plan to rig the election. In the week preceding tomorrow's vote a turf war broke out over whether Kurds or Arabs would defend polling stations. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby any centre protected by a Kurdish unit would also have a detachment of Arab troops. Soldiers controlled by Baghdad will be in place to keep an eye on soldiers deployed by the Kurdish authorities in Erbil.

Allegations of corruption and intimidation are already widespread. One Ninewa resident, who asked not to be named, said he had been given money to support a party affiliated with the Kurds. "I used to live in Baghdad and have been a refugee up here for years now," he said. "I've asked for financial help from the authorities many times and have always been turned down. Then a week ago I got a call to come in and pick up 50,000 dinar [Dh147]. I was given the cash and an election leaflet for one party that's with the Kurds. They told me, 'You know who to vote for'."

He said he took the money but would vote for another party. "It's a secret vote, so they won't even know," he said. The claim cannot be verified and the Kurdish parties are adamant they have not been involved in any illegal or unethical practices. That there is widespread disillusionment with the current Kurdish controlled provincial authority is clear, as is the fact that Ninewa's Arabs are bound to be better represented after the election.

What is not clear is whether any single party will win a controlling majority or if alliances will have to be made. If a successful IIP were to ally with the Kurdish bloc and some other smaller parties, Kurds may be able to maintain much of their power. "People are afraid but they want to see change in Mosul, they want new government, a new council and they'll vote to do that," said Falah Qassunion, a senior member of the Communist Party in Ninewa. The Communists are allied with the Kurds on the 236 list. "The rhetoric at the moment from the Arabs is very anti-Kurd but the two sides must start co-operating after the election. At the moment it is all so heated because they are fighting for the seats.

"I think the provincial council will be split between parties and that in the end there must be coalition rule. That must be an improvement on the current situation." Tomorrow's elections will take place in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Voting in Kirkuk, another city disputed between Arabs and Kurds, has been postponed, as have ballots in the autonomous Kurdish zone. [e-mail]