A Kurdish-backed list of candidates on Sunday won a majority of seats on the regional council that governs this diverse northern city, a major political step in reversing the bloody course set by former president Saddam Hussein to make Kirkuk an Arab-dominated city.
But the highly contested outcome also could spark a civil war if the Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs who share the oil-rich city are unable to reconcile the political shift, their leaders said.
The Kurdish-backed Kirkuk Brotherhood slate won 59 percent of the vote, according to the official results, which still must be certified. The Iraqi Turkmen Front got 18 percent of the vote, and the Arab-dominated Republican Iraqi Gathering won 11 percent.
Dire predictions of war
"We consider it false elections and not honest," said Sheik Abdul-Rahman Munshid Asi, a representative of the Arabic Gathering, one of the parties running on the Republican Iraqi Gathering slate. "This will lead to . . . civil war in Kirkuk. People are angry and feel hatred toward the Kurdish parties because they worked on marginalizing the Arabs and Turkmen."
In a sign of just how deep strife runs here, even before the results of the Jan. 30 election were released on Sunday, the Turkmen and Arab parties contested the unofficial tally that gave the Kirkuk Brotherhood slate a majority.
In Kirkuk, residents of Kurdish neighborhoods celebrated in the streets, shooting off celebratory gunfire and holding up pictures of the two main Kurdish party leaders, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish contender to be president of Iraq. By contrast, the Arab and Turkmen neighborhoods in the city were quiet.
"Our slate proved that Kirkuk is a Kurdish city," said a joyful Najat Hasan Karim, a member of the KDP.
The Turkmen and Arabs believe that the Kurdish victory can mean only one thing: that the Kurds will try to annex the city into their semiautonomous zone in northern Iraq, which has been outside the control of the Iraqi central government since 1991. They will fight such a result, many said, even if it means bloodshed.
Jamal Shan, head of the regional Turkman Watan Party and the top candidate for the Front of Turkman national slate, called the election suspect. "We cannot accept the results," he said. "There is a conspiracy against the Turkmens and Arabs."
Sunnis ask U.S. forces to stay
Asi, the Arab party representative, called on U.S. forces to remain in the city to prevent an outbreak of violence, an unusual plea for help from American troops from a Sunni Muslim party.
Tens of thousands of Kurds who were driven out of Kirkuk when Hussein held power returned to vote in the election, angering Arabs and Turkmens who said the balloting was skewed against them. The Kurdish parties have made no secret of their desire to make Kirkuk a Kurdish city, rectifying decades of bloodshed and displacement under Hussein and his Baath Party.
But Razgar Ali, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and a member of the Kirkuk Brotherhood slate that won the majority, said the Kurds are not trying to settle the score by excluding the other groups. He said the slate included an Arab, Turkmens and Christians. "We don't aim to control Kirkuk," he said. "We want to show its Kurdish identity. The success of our slate means a success to the Kurds' project and their struggle in the last decades."
Ismail Ahmed Hadidi, the deputy governor of Kirkuk, was the Arab candidate on the Kurdish slate.
"I joined this slate because the Arabs don't have leadership to organize them in Kirkuk," Hadidi said. "I wanted to be the Arabs' voice in the slate."
In Sulaymaniyah, part of the Kurdish zone, displaced Kurds said they were adamant about returning the city to their control.
However, the question of annexing Kirkuk back to the Kurds "should wait until Iraq is more stable," said Reben Nasraldeen, 22, a student.
But Rasool Zain Abidin, a professor at the Technical University of Kirkuk and a Shiite Arab, said: "Kirkuk is a city for all nationalities and ethnic groups since it existed. It cannot be given to anyone. This will be the cancer that will destroy Iraq."
Spinner reported from Fallujah. Special correspondent Sarok Abdulla Ahmed in Sulaymaniyah contributed to this report.
