SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish lawmaker in Kirkuk accused the governor, who is running for election to Iraq’s parliament, of abusing his position and violating campaign rules, the latest election dispute in the ethnically diverse province. Dilan Ghafour, an MP from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) who is running for re-election, said on Tuesday that she will file a complaint against acting governor Rakan al-Jabouri with the Independent High Electoral Commission, alleging he used “his official position in favor of his campaign for the Iraqi parliament.” “Rakan al-Jabouri opened the new building of Kirkuk governorate yesterday, to use this public project in favor of his personal interest and his election campaign,” Dilan Ghafour said in a press conference in Kirkuk. Jabouri opened the building, built with public funds and still under construction, according to Ghafour, in a ceremony on Monday. “This is a violation of the law and regulations of the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq,” Ghafour said. The election campaign in Kirkuk has been fraught with disputes. Arab and Turkmen MPs had requested a week-long delay to the election in Kirkuk city, alleging Kurdish employees at the election commission were stacking the vote in favour of their fellow Kurds. Jabouri made a similar call, saying time was needed to resolve disputes between the groups. Oil-rich Kirkuk is home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen and lies within the disputed areas claimed by both the federal Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In the 2018 election, the PUK won six seats and was accused of rigging the vote. Jabouri was assigned as acting governor by Baghdad in 2017 after the Iraqi army and Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF or Hashd al-Shaabi) militias took over the province from the Kurdish Peshmerga in the wake of the Kurdistan independence referendum. Kurds have accused him of discrimination and resurrecting the Baathist era policy of Arabization. In 2020, he was summoned to court on charges of misusing public funds and was consequently issued with a travel ban by the Iraqi Integrity Commission. Jabouri is now running in the October 10 election, looking to represent the predominantly Arab district in southern Kirkuk in the Iraqi parliament.
