Why political representation of Turkmen in northern Iraq is at risk

Parliamentary elections in the Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq (KRI) are expected to be held in September after being postponed for nearly two years. However, the region’s Turkmen – an ethnic Turkic group – are heavily discontent with the change in the election system.

Reducing the Turkmen quota in the KRI parliament from five to two makes it difficult for them to gain as many seats as before.

In addition, the intervention of the Kurdish ruling political parties in quotas to elect candidates close to them is another growing threat to Turkmen's political representation.

In general, the Turkmen in KRI believe that their diminished political representation will have negative consequences for the ethnic group’s future.

'Exploiting' minority quotas

KRI’s parliamentary elections – first announced to be held on October 1, 2022 – were delayed several times due to disagreements between the Masoud Barzani's KDP and the PUK of Bafel Talabani over the election system and minority quotas.

KDP has long been accused, especially by the PUK, of interfering with the 11 quotas allocated to minorities in the previous system – five for Turkmen, five for Christians and one for Armenians.

Essentially, the quota seats enable minorities to easily enter the parliament with a lower vote than normal candidates should take, but powerful parties exploit the quota system by directing their masses to vote for candidates they support.

“The quota issue has clearly been a matter of contention between the two parties in recent years. It was like, let's share this cake. When it did not happen, a complaint was filed in the Federal Supreme Court,” Mehmet Ferit Erbiloglu, a Turkmen journalist and the editor-in-chief of the Turkmen Press Agency (TEBA), tells TRT World.

In fact, PUK’s complaint to the Iraqi court over the quotas resulted on February 21 in the abolition of the 11 quotas in the KRI parliament. The court also decided to reduce the number of seats in the 111-seat KRI parliament to 100.

Reacting harshly to the quota ruling, the KDP and several Turkmen and Christian parties, most of which are known for their closeness to the KDP, announced that they would boycott the elections, while the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) decided to participate in the elections despite its discomfort with the ruling.

Following KDP’s boycott defiance, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council on May 21 decided to allocate five quotas for minorities – two for Turkmen, two for Christians and one for Armenians.

The latest ruling also caused the KDP to back down from its boycott and seems to have settled the dispute between the rival Kurdish parties. Despite that, Turkmen are still not satisfied with the reduction of quotas.

“We did not welcome this (quota seats) being reduced and, as the ITF, expressed our strong reaction since quotas are given right regulated by the regional parliament and the law,” Imdat Bilal, a Turkmen politician and ITF’s former Erbil deputy in the Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq's parliament whose term of office expired in last July, tells TRT World.

Turkmen representation melting away

Although Turkmen regained some of their previous quotas, the current system complicates their political predicament even more.

So much so that it divides two quotas of Turkmen into Erbil and Sulaymaniyah – each city is respectively governed by the KDP and PUK.

This means that the Turkmen quotas, which the KDP intervened in Erbil in the past, will now also be influenced by the PUK in its stronghold of Sulaymaniyah.

Bilal says there are too many loopholes in the quota system, and political parties have exploited them.

It is noteworthy that the ruling parties’ intervention in quotas raises questions about whom the elected officials actually serve—the Turkmen or themselves.

“Unfortunately, in the past, there was interference in both the Turkmen and other quotas in the elections. It is important for us Turkmen to always have a willed, real representative in the parliament," Aydin Maruf, minister for component affairs in northern Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said.

In the last elections held on September 30, 2018, the KDP won 45 seats and PUK 21. However, reducing the number of seats and dividing the quotas into provinces will probably intensify the competition between the two parties.

This situation will undoubtedly escalate the KDP and PUK's domination efforts towards Turkmen quotas.

“It is probably impossible to win a quota in Erbil without permission from the KDP. No side can win in Sulaymaniyah without the approval of the PUK. They will use it for their political purposes,” Erbiloglu says.

According to estimates by Turkmen politicians, approximately 100,000 to 400,000 Turkmen live in the region. Despite this, the number of Turkmen voters reflected in the Turkmen quotas is very low.

Considering that five Turkmen quota deputies received fewer than 9,000 votes in the last elections, it is almost only possible for Turkmen to enter the parliament with quotas.

Though it is not clear why voter turnout is so low among Turkmen, experts ascribe several reasons, including the fact that the community also votes for Kurdish parties rather than their own representatives.

However, the Turkmen community's hesitation to vote for their own quota also raises the question: has the community lost faith in their own politicians, the quota system or politics in general in the face of ruling parties’ interventions?

In fact, if the Turkmen quotas in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah are dominated by KDP and PUK, this may result in those quotas following the interest of the ruling parties and not the Turkmen society.

“Turkmen were not in decision-making bodies. But this situation will have a big impact. It can be said that Turkmen have hit the bottom in the political arena,” the Turkmen journalist warns.

Bilal also agrees that a decrease in quotas will reduce the political representation of Turkmen in the region.

“I personally see it this way– it is as if they want to ignore the Turkmens in Iraq and the region. This could be negative for Turkmen in the future,” the Turkmen politician argues.

In response to Turkmen's at-risk representation in the parliament, it may be possible to give the ethnic group members ministerial positions in the new government.

In addition, Bilal thinks that Turkmen can be given other positions, such as Erbil governorship, mayorship, general directorate, or undersecretaries, in the face of the issues.