Iraq's Turkmen Front says parliament's minority quota system ‘unsuccessful’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi Turkmen Front said Iraq’s quota system to reserve parliamentary seats for minorities has been “unsuccessful” and manipulated by parties for their own political gains.

 

"The quota system applied in Iraq has been unsuccessful. There are too many interventions," Aydin Maaruf, a politburo member of the Turkmen Front, told Rudaw on Friday. "Some parties are interfering in the affairs of the minority communities, while the minorities want to have genuine representation."

 

The Iraqi parliament reserves nine out of its 329 seats for minorities under a quota system designed to ensure representation for minority groups. Five seats are for Christians and the remaining four quota seats go to Yazidis, Faylis, Shabaks, and Mandaean-Sabean.

 

The quota seats are voted for as one constituency encompassing the whole country. For example, a voter in Basra can vote for a quota candidate in Baghdad, or any other province in the country.

 

"The minorities are not in favor of a single constituency," Maaruf said, saying this regulation is manipulated and exploited.

 

The Iraqi Turkmen Front will contest the elections on an independent list in Erbil, Sulaimani, and Kirkuk. The party has fielded candidates in Diyala, Nineveh, Salahaddin, and Baghdad on other lists. Maaruf said their goal is to serve the Iraqi Turkmen population, which he called the third nation in the country, after Arabs and Kurds. 

 

Christians have also raised concerns about the election. The Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, warned Christians against voting for candidates affiliated with armed groups that "control their destinies" and dominate their towns in the Christians’ northern Iraq heartland of Nineveh.

 

While Sako did not explicitly name any group, his remarks are widely believed to be directed at the Babylon Movement, led by Rayan al-Kildani, which has established a prominent presence in Nineveh's political scene - particularly in relation to the Christian quota seats.