(U) KIRKUK IECI HEAD ON NORMALIZATION, UPCOMING CENSUS AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000129 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 7/19/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: (U) KIRKUK IECI HEAD ON NORMALIZATION, UPCOMING CENSUS AND REFERENDUM CLASSIFIED BY: Tim Uselmann, Political Officer, IPAO, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (a),(d) ¶1. (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY: Kirkuk head of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI),Ferhad Talabani, is threatening to close the office due to poor security, government corruption, and lack of funding. Talabani detailed the ethnic breakdown of the office personnel and perceived duties of the IECI during the future referendum on Kirkuk. Talabani would like at least one UN representative in each IECI office to supervise the upcoming provincial elections. Local Kurdish officials may be stalling the process deliberately with the hope of implementing unilateral normalization of Kirkuk with little federal or independent oversight. END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. (C) CHALLENGES FACING IECI IN KIRKUK -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) IPAO on 9 July 2006 met with the head of Kirkuk IECI, Ferhad Majid Talabani, who said he has been threatening to close the IECI office in Kirkuk for two reasons. First, there are no guards to protect the office and employees. Talabani claimed he has received numerous threats and that three IECI staff were assassinated last year. He has sent a letter to the IECI head, the President of the Iraqi Assembly, and the Iraqi President to request better security. Second, the Kirkuk government has not cooperated with him due to corruption and bureaucratic indifference at the Provincial Council. (C) KIRKUK IECI ROLL IN PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS, CENSUS -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) On the timeline for provincial elections, Talabani thought December, 2006, was most likely. He said that Kirkuk is ready for the elections, provided Baghdad "does not try to control everything," and added that in the last elections Baghdad managed staff at all the IECI offices in Iraq. Talabani also insisted the provinces be given at least 70 days' advance notice of the date for the elections. (C) DETERMINING VOTER ELIGIBILITY IN KIRKUK -------------- ¶4. (C) Talabani said the IECI in Kirkuk will monitor voter eligibility, currently based on local food ration and national identity cards, and noted that changing food card registration is an easy process. For instance, Internally Displaced Persons �00A;upon moving to Kirkuk go to the Food Ration Center with a national or civil identity card to request that their food ration records be transferred from Sulaymaniyah or other locations to Kirkuk. Talabani would like to make a special card for each voter to prevent forgery, but this would require funding. He said that according to the law, "new Arabs" have the right to vote, and that he does not anticipate problems for the IECI during provincial elections but that the referendum will be problematic because the IECI does not know which areas will vote to belong to Kirkuk Province. The Kirkuk IECI has been compiling a list of all Kurdish citizens but Talabani said the administrative border of Kirkuk is "not clear right now so enrolling is a problem" and claimed implementation of Article 140 must occur to determine the administrative borders of Kirkuk. Talabani would like at least one UN representative in each IECI office to supervise the elections, and anticipated that either the IECI or the Ministry of Planning would conduct the Kirkuk census, but that it probably would be the IECI and that his office would be a "major factor" in the referendum. (C) PRESENT AND FUTURE CONFIGURATION OF KIRKUK IECI -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Currently there are 55 employees in the Kirkuk IECI office, but Talabani said this number would increase for the elections and referendum. On the ethnic representation, there are 7 Kurds, according to Talabani, while the rest are Turkoman and Arabs. Talabani also noted there are remnants of the Ba'ath party in Baghdad who create problems between the Kirkuk and Baghdad offices in any efforts to reform personnel in the Kirkuk IECI. Talabani would like to create a board composed of 2 Kurds, 1 Assyrian, 1 Turkoman, and 3 Arabs to reorganize the IECI office in Kirkuk. (U) BIOGRPAHIC NOTES -------------- ¶6. (C) Ferhad Majid Talabani: since 30 January 2005, a member of the Kurdistan Supreme Electoral Committee, which supervised IECI offices in the three Kurdish provinces. He is from the Talabani clan but claims to be independent politically. He was born in the Shorija neighborhood of Kirkuk in 1965; received primary and secondary education in Kirkuk; degree in Mechanical Engineering from Baghdad University and worked as a contractor; lived in Yugoslavia (Skobje - Macedonia) for 6 to 7 KIRKUK 00000129 002.2 OF 002 years. He claims to speak the dialects of all the ethnic communities of Kirkuk. (U) COMMENT -------------- ¶7. (C) Poor security, federal and local bureaucratic indifference, and lack of funding for projects may be deliberate attempts to stall the process in order to cite lack of action from Baghdad as license for unilateral Kurdish efforts to normalize Kirkuk with little federal or independent oversight. JBIGUS