Cursed or blessed by the presence of oil, residents of the federal region must vote, writes MICHAEL JANSENin Irbil
STOLID IRBIL is doing its best to shrug off Sunday’s parliamentary election. Occasional overpasses are decked with tattered and torn party posters and a few strings of yellow flags hang limply from street lamps, reminding largely indifferent residents that they are obliged go to the polls in Iraq’s second national assembly election since the US occupation in 2003.
Asserting the region’s autonomous status, a massive red, white and green Kurdish banner with a gold sun at its centre unfolds majestically in the breeze over the city’s 4,300-year-old citadel. Here in the Kurdish federal capital, Iraqi national flags are flown only on buildings used by the Baghdad government.
The Kurdish flag everywhere makes the point that this is a special, federal region.
Over steaming cups of coffee in the luxurious atrium of Irbil’s best hotel, businessman Baram explains why the campaign is low key in comparison to the swinging scene in Suleimaniya.
“Only one party is running here” – the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, the regional president. Baram sighs. “People who don’t vote lose their ration cards, just like in the time of Saddam Hussein.”
Traffic is heavy in the city centre. But there are no cars sporting party colours. Confirming his assertion that the race here is essentially a one-party affair, we find very few posters depicting candidates of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the KDP’s electoral ally. There are some posters advertising candidates fielded by Islamic parties and rare posters for Goran (which translates as “Change”), the new movement challenging the dominance of the KDP and PUK which have run Iraq’s Kurdish provinces for 19 years.
The popular eating place where we lunch on delicious “northern Kurdish” food displays no election manifestos, just like the Iraqi restaurant where I dined with friends in Amman, the Jordanian capital, where exiled Iraqis are set to vote in 10 centres.
On the road back to Suleimaniya, we drive along the border of the neighbouring Arab-majority province of Tamim, the city of Kirkuk and flaring oil rigs on our right. Karin snaps a few photos and remarks to Ali, our driver, “Your blessing and your curse.” He replies, “Our destiny.”
This line is Iraq’s most volatile flashpoint because the Kurds’ claim to Kirkuk and its riches is vehemently opposed by the area’s Arab and Turkomen citizens and central government in Baghdad.
At two of the seven checkpoints on the rutted road, we find US soldiers standing beside massive armoured vehicles parked by huge baskets filled with rubble.
These troops play gooseberry between the squabbling parties living along this fault line and could stay on after the 2011 withdrawal date laid down by President Barack Obama.
At the entrance to Suleimaniya, we meet our first horn-honking, flag-flying, people-shouting convoy of campaign cars.
Party banners flutter across every street, and walls are papered over with posters.
We are back in the multiparty contest for the parliament which could determine whether Iraq adopts some sort of democracy or dictatorship.