Iraq’s competition to control local administrations goes national

In the aftermath of the December 2023 Provincial Council (PC) elections, political parties across Iraq have been seeking to shore up their gains or minimize their losses in the formation of the provincial executive governments, with some provinces, like Kirkuk and Diyala, remaining in deadlock at time of writing. However, in other provinces, such as Ninewa, those now in power are looking to ensure that they are maximizing their new gains by dominating key administrative positions at the district and subdistrict levels. Since its inaugural session in February, the Ninewa PC,¹ like others nationwide, has been focused on realigning and redistributing the levers of power within its control as political parties look to strengthen their position ahead of Iraq’s next federal elections scheduled for October 2025.

In the past three months, the Ninewa PC has specifically focused on negotiations to replace the heads of administrative units across the province at the district and sub-district levels. The week of July 1 saw an attempt by factions with the Coordination Framework² (CF) to force the replacement of district-level heads through a vote. The response was explosive, with one district head, Hameed al-Dawoodi, calling the changes “a political and sectarian coup against the law.” The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its allied blocs, the Unified Ninewa Alliance (UNA),³ boycotted the vote and appealed to the federal government to revoke the decision, calling it illegal and a “circumvention of the law and political agreements.”

This case highlights several broader political trends in Iraq, from the CF's attempts to increase its dominance in the provinces in preparation for future federal elections, to competition in Iraq’s uncertain decentralization landscape, which provides ample opportunity for national political party interests to penetrate the provinces politically and usurp government resources. It also shines a light on the continuing dispute between the KDP and the federal government regarding its assumed control over Ninewa’s districts behind the “Green Line,”⁴ an opportunistic expansion of the Kurdistan Region that has hardened in the years since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. These longstanding disagreements made their way into Iraq’s 2005 Constitution under Article 140, a controversial inclusion that successive federal governments have postponed, which stipulates that a referendum will occur by Dec. 31, 2007 in “Kirkuk and other disputed territories” to determine if the land will be governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or by the federal government. Though the sunset clause has long passed on Article 140, the government of Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani committed to addressing it, re-establishing a committee to discuss the issue two years ago — but to no effect. The realignment of power in the wake of the fight to defeat ISIS has further complicated dynamics, as numerous new entrants from the CF and various Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) actors have joined Ninewa’s political and security landscape.

The PC, the vote, and the boycott

As a result of the 2023 PC elections, the Ninewa PC (consisting of 29 seats⁵) is currently divided between two main alliances:

1. The Unified Ninewa Alliance (eight seats): four for Ninewa to its People led by former governor Najim al-Jubouri,⁶ two for Siyada led by Sunni leader Khamis al-Khanjar, and two for Hasm al-Watani led by Minister of Defense Thabit al-Abbasi, which strongly coordinates with the ruling party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the KDP and its four seats, bringing its total strength to 12 seats;
2. The Ninewa Future Alliance (NFA), including the CF, consists of the main Shi’a parties and their allies in Ninewa, in addition to the three minority seats, Taqadum of former speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, and other allied parties (16 seats).

With the majority share of the PC, the NFA called for a meeting on July 3 to discuss the district- and subdistrict-level administrative heads. The PC chairman, affiliated with Falih al-Fayyadh’s party, the National Contract Alliance,⁷ decided to move forward with dismissing 14 heads, including four district and 10 subdistrict heads, and called for the PC to vote on who would replace them.

This was met with immediate pushback from the KDP and UNA: The head of the KDP bloc and member of the Ninewa Council, Ahmed Sheikh Kanaan al-Kiki, said that the KDP would suspend its membership of the PC, alongside the members of the UNA. They also demanded that the High Commission for the Coordination between the Provinces (HCCP)⁸, which is a federal body responsible for coordinating and resolving issues among the provinces, dismiss the chair of the Ninewa PC and revoke the decision to appoint the administrative heads, claiming that the vote was illegal.⁹ As a result, the Iraqi Council of Ministers (CoM) suspended the PC’s election of the new administrative heads, pending a ruling on its legality.

The legal battle begins, but politics reign supreme

The Ninewa PC quickly responded to the suspension by issuing a statement on July 3, arguing four essential legal points:

1. Per Article 115 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution, all powers not stipulated by the Constitution as exclusive to the federal government belong to the authority of the regions and the provinces not incorporated into a region.
2. Article 30 of Law 21 (2008) stipulates that the governor, two deputies, and heads of the administrative units will continue to manage affairs beyond their elected cycle until a new election. As the administrative heads have reached the end of their term, the PC can now replace them.
3. Article 8 of Law 21 (2008) stipulates that the PC can elect the district governor and district director by an absolute majority of its members; should none of the candidates achieve an absolute majority, the member with the most votes will win in a run-off vote.
4. Article 1 of Law 4 (2023) amends the Governorate and District Council Elections Law (Law 12 (2018)), noting that in the event of a district council's absence, the PC assumes its powers.

While the Ninewa PC's argument is strong, the KDP and UNA are playing political games in Baghdad to achieve their goals.

On July 3, KDP leader Masoud Barzani visited Baghdad for the first time in six years. Among many other reasons, Barzani travelled to the capital to meet with key members of the CF and ensure that the KDP would not lose control (or at least mitigate losses) of its presence in the disputed territories. The CoM’s response — to suspend the election of the administrative heads despite the PC’s strong legal argument — suggests that Prime Minister Sudani is prioritizing his federal relationship with the KDP, all while waiting for the KDP and the other federal parties involved to come to a negotiated solution.

Why do these districts matter?

The districts and subdistricts within Ninewa, as with the other provinces, provide parties a unique level of access to mechanisms of control and to local populations. With more party control across horizontal levels of government administration, parties are able to direct funds toward their own interests more easily and also control the critical hiring patterns that are often heavily relied upon ahead of elections.

The battle for the districts is happening now as this is seen as a golden opportunity for the CF and anti-KDP parties because they have a majority of the Ninewa PC with 16 out of 29 seats. Establishing control over the districts and sub-districts is a critical first step toward gaining access to their resources. With these resources in hand, the parties will have the key to launch a successful candidate in future elections, namely the future federal elections (which in theory will take place in 2025. This is critical for the CF: In 2021, the CF’s parties did poorly in the federal parliamentary elections. However, they succeeded in the 2023 provincial elections and are seeking to build on that going forward and develop more control in Ninewa, among other provinces.

The CF’s expansion in Ninewa was not spontaneous; this has been a long-standing plan dating back to 2014, when the PMF entered the province to liberate it from ISIS’s invasion. While Shi’a party political dominance in other provinces has distinctly taken shape since 2005, such as in Diyala, Ninewa as a Sunni-majority province remained difficult to penetrate. Part of the incentive is that it is a lucrative enterprise as the home of Iraq’s second-largest city. With the rise of ISIS and its claim to Mosul as the center of its self-proclaimed caliphate, this provided PMF groups with an internal justification for their lingering presence and attempts to politically control the province. For Iran-aligned militia groups, control over areas in Ninewa also allows for additional smuggling routes and operational areas against US forces in Syria.

During the 2018 parliamentary elections, political conditions were not ripe for the CF’s precursor groupings to succeed as their overwhelming focus was on security rather than campaigning. As the province stabilized and the country moved toward early parliamentary elections in 2021, the expansionary intent was evident. However, the constituency-based electoral system and internal competition among the parties that would become the CF hindered their electoral strategy and delivered a significant win to the KDP and Taqadum, both of which are highly centralized. Their coordinated strategy allowed them to capture two-thirds of the province’s parliamentary seats, leaving the now-CF parties and their allies with just one-third. The proportional representation list-based electoral system used in 2023’s PC election was far better suited to the structure of the CF and thus produced significantly different results.

The KDP previously controlled more than half of the 31 administrative units in Ninewa. However, the CF and anti-KDP parties felt that despite historical KDP control over areas in Ninewa, the KDP only has four seats, far exceeding its allocated “points” per the muhassasa point system. Points are allocated to parties based on the number of seats they have obtained and they can then “spend” these and barter for specific positions in government and within the administrations. As such, the CF and other parties feel they deserve to have more influence within the province.

Conclusion

The efforts by the Ninewa PC to elect administrative heads and the ensuing legal and political battle between the province and the federal government, as well as between the KDP and the CF, highlight just how intertwined national-level politics is with the local level of government. Additionally, it highlights the ongoing push and pull of decentralization in Iraq as, while the Ninewa PC puts forward a compelling legal argument for its case, the real decision on whether the administrative heads will be replaced (and if so, by whom) will be made among the party leaders themselves, and likely not in Ninewa. All of the parties continue to have a reason to want to dominate the districts and sub-districts as they seek to maximize their position, typically by abusing state resources, to promote themselves ahead of the next federal elections. The CF certainly does not want a repeat performance of the 2021 elections and is likely anticipating another fight with the Sadrists as Muqtada al-Sadr re-enters the political arena.

Aside from the political impacts, there are real social impacts from the political infighting over the local administrations. For example, the Ninewa PC’s appointment of the mayor of Shingal (Sinjar) was halted by the KDP/UNA’s legal case, showing the ongoing difficulty in implementing the Sinjar Agreement, a top-down deal signed in 2020 between the Iraqi federal government and the KRG meant to facilitate Yazidi returnees to Sinjar, address local administration and reconstruction, and disarm local militia groups.¹⁰ Despite the agreement calling for the appointment of a mayor in Shingal, the KDP (among other parties) has a distinct interest in seeing its preferred candidate win, with the KDP in particular seeking to ensure that the candidate promotes its return into the area. As long as this political jockeying continues, the Sinjar Agreement will languish as security concerns and lack of services in Sinjar ensue, further hampering the ability of internally displaced persons to return to the area.

This form of competition for local administration heads will certainly continue, as will the involvement of national-level parties seeking to exert their influence in provinces across Iraq. As all parties have their eyes set on the upcoming federal elections, these efforts will certainly heat up going forward, and likely not to the benefit of the local citizenry.

Mike Fleet is a Senior Analyst with the Government of Canada. He previously worked as a Senior Researcher with the Institute on Governance on the Iraq Team that implemented the Fiscal Decentralization and Resiliency Project. His current research focus is on Iraqi politics, federalism, state-building, and conflict dynamics. He tweets @MikeFleet23. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article represent those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of their employer, the Government of Canada.  

Mohanad Adnan is the founder of Roya Development Group (RDG), where he serves as an expert political analyst and advisor on Iraq’s political economy. He advises international organizations and donor agencies, leads strategic planning exercises with civic activists, and mentors Iraqi civil society organizations. He previously served as a senior manager with the International Republican Institute, overseeing a portfolio of political development and civic advocacy programs. He tweets @mohanadaadnan.

Photo by Safin HAMID/AFP