ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s prime minister on Sunday accepted the resignation of Nineveh Governor Najim al-Jabouri who has been prohibited from running in upcoming provincial council elections due to his past links to Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime.
Iraq’s Commission for Accountability and Justice in late September excluded over 100 election candidates, including Jabouri who was listed due to his work as a member of the dissolved military intelligence.
Jabouri in October appealed the commission’s decision at the Federal Court of Cassation, but his request was rejected by the court.
“Given the failure to complete the procedures of my de-Baathification, due to the failure to vote on that in the parliament, I am requesting your excellency to accept my resignation from my position as governor of Nineveh,” Jabouri wrote in his resignation letter addressed to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
After accepting the resignation, Sudani received Jabouri and expressed gratitude for the work done during his tenure as Nineveh governor.
Jabouri, a retired lieutenant general who commanded Iraqi forces during the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Nineveh, was appointed to the post of governor in 2019 after months of political turmoil in the province.
Passed in 2008, the Accountability and Justice Act governs the practice of de-Baathification, defined as the procedures to “intellectually, administratively, politically, culturally and economically dismantle the Baath party system in Iraqi society, state institutions, and civil society institutions."
Iraq will hold provincial council elections on December 18, the first of their kind since 2013. The councils, created by the 2005 Iraqi constitution following the fall of Hussein, are powerful bodies that hold significant power in the country, including setting the budgets for several sectors such as education, health, and transport.
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