Shafaq News- Kirkuk

Kirkuk's Provincial Council postponed Wednesday's vote to elect a new governor as political disagreements over the position continued, council member Raad Saleh Al-Jubouri told Shafaq News, while a Christian lawmaker called for the post to be assigned to his community for a limited period.

Al-Jubouri, an Arab member of the council, explained that the session, initially scheduled for 4 p.m. and later moved to 8 p.m. local time, was ultimately postponed without a new date. The council was expected to elect a successor to former Kirkuk Governor Mohammed Samaan Agha, with Turkmen representatives seeking to retain the position for the remainder of their allotted term following his appointment to a ministerial post.

The selection of a new governor has drawn objections from Qais Al-Khazali, leader of the Shiite Asaib Ahl Al-Haq movement, who opposed assigning the post to a Sunni candidate, citing an earlier political agreement that he said reserved it for a Shiite figure, a political source previously told Shafaq News. Qahtan Al-Wandawi and Mardin Gokkaya had emerged as Turkmen contenders.

Meanwhile, Imad Youkhanna, a lawmaker from the Christian Suyana bloc, called for Kirkuk's Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian community to hold the governorship for “a fixed period,” rejecting what he described as its continued exclusion from senior provincial positions.

"Political agreements, whatever their nature, cannot override the constitution and the law or diminish the rights of Kirkuk's communities to representation and participation," Youkhanna told Shafaq News.

He pointed out that Turkmen representatives had assumed the governorship a year earlier, describing it as a "historic entitlement," adding that the Christian community had previously held the deputy governor's post and other administrative positions since 2003 but had subsequently lost them.

Youkhanna held the community's representative and other political blocs responsible for its marginalization, calling for a review of how provincial positions are distributed. “All legal, political, and dialogue-based options will remain on the table to restore our right to representation.”

Kirkuk's 16-member Provincial Council includes one seat reserved for Christians. In September 2024, the Assyrian Democratic Movement protested the loss of the Christian deputy governor's position and objected to the community's exclusion from senior provincial appointments.