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Muslim leaders in this
ethnically-divided city are trying to convert
religious zeal into results at the ballot box on
January 30. Arab and Kurdish clerics are vying for
voters, but it looks like the former will have the
upper hand when it comes to rallying the faithful.
Mullah Sirwan Ahmad, the preacher of the Iskan
Mosque, is urging Kurds to go to the polls, saying
anyone who does not go is a “traitor, ex-Ba’athist
and the enemy of the Kurds”.
“We must elect our real representatives. Our
representatives are Kurds and an Arab never
represents us,” he said. “If Arabs have ever
represented Kurds, they would not have killed them
and kicked them out from Hawija [a town south of
Kirkuk].”
Mullah Teib Abdullah, a preacher at the Omer Ibn Al-Khatab
Mosque, is also urging his Sunni Arab believers to
vote.
“Whoever doesn’t go to vote will be cursed by God on
Judgment Day,” said Abdullah.
This high-stakes political preaching is no surprise
in the disputed city of Kirkuk. Former Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein sought to change the ethnic
makeup of the oil-rich regional centre in the
mid-1970s by forcibly removing Kurds and Turkomen
and replacing them with Arabs from southern Iraq and
Baathist officials.
Many Kurds view Kirkuk as a future capital and
economic heart of an independent Kurdish state.
Since the fall of Saddam, tens of thousands of Kurds
have returned to the city to try to reclaim their
homes and register to vote.
Sabah Fatah, a Kurd from Kirkuk, said while it is
good to hear clerics speaking out about the
elections, it is unlikely to change the way Kurds
vote.
Fatah said the Kurdish people in Iraq do not follow
a central religious figure or group as some Arabs
do. Instead, Kurdish clerics are more likely to
follow the lead of the Kurdish political parties.
The efforts in Kirkuk are part of a larger campaign
in mosques throughout Iraq to get believers to turn
out at the polls.
The most prominent election fatwa in Iraq is the one
issued by top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani,
who described voting as a religious duty.
The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars responded
with a fatwa of its own, calling for a boycott of
the elections, describing them as illegal and held
under foreign occupation. The leading Sunni
political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, withdrew
its candidate list in December as part of the
boycott.
Some believe that it was the Americans that gave
clerics a leading role in Iraq’s political system.
“Prior to the Operation Iraqi Freedom, Al-Sistani
didn’t have any role in Iraq, but the Americans made
him like you see now,” said Azad Jalal, a philosophy
graduate.
“Now the people of the south of Iraq can [be
mobilised] only by a fatwa of Al-Sistani. This war
of fatwas is very dangerous to the future of Iraq.”
This story has not been bylined because of concerns
for the security of IWPR reporters.
http://www.iwpr.net
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