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KIRKUK,
Kurdistan-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.
Reuters
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