Regions and governorates in the Iraqi federation

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Regions and governorates in the Iraqi federation

• Empirical considerations

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A note of caution

• Outsider ignorance about the raw facts of the
  situation in Iraq
• Absence of statistics World Bank data sheet
• Security situation and inability to collect data
• Are locals in a better position to fill in the
  many gaps?

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World Bank Iraq data at a glance
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Iraqi diversity at a glance(1987 government
estimates)

• Ethnic diversity
• Total Arab population 76 percent
• Large Kurdish minority, 19 of the population,
  or 3,092,820.
• Turkomans and other Turkic-speaking peoples
  account for only 2 to 3 percent of the
  population.
• Previously a large Iranian population settled
  around the Shia holy cities of Karbala and An
  Najaf, and the southern port city of Basra this
  element was largely expelled by government decree
  in 1971-72 and 1979-80.
• Religious diversity
• At least 95 percent of population adheres to some
  form of Islam.
• Almost all Kurds, approximately 19 percent of
  population, are Sunnis, together with about 13
  percent Sunni Arabs.
• Saddam Hussein government gave number of Shias as
  55 percent but probably 60 to 65 percent is
  reasonable figure.
• Small numbers of Assyrians and Armenians,
  predominantly Christians. No more than 1 or 2
  percent, concentrated mainly in the governorates
  of Nineveh and Dahuk.
• Yazidis
• A formerly extensive Jewish community is to all
  practical purposes defunct.
• Linguistic diversity
• Arabic official language and mother tongue of
  about 76 percent of population understood by
  majority of others.
• Kurdish official language in As Sulaymaniyah,
  Dahuk, and Irbil governorates.
• Minorities speaking Turkic, Armenian, and
  Persian.

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Empirical considerations stemming from ethnic
diversity

• Which, if any, of these markers of diversity
  should the new regions express?
• Kurdistan expresses the ethnic cleavage between
  Arabs and Kurds. Should the other regions also
  express cleavages or seek to cut across them?
• Considering the difficulty of redrawing internal
  boundaries in federations, should decisions
  reflect only those markers of diversity that are
  important at present or those that are expected
  to remain important into the future?
• Many Iraqis consider that sectarianism is a
  recent and temporary phenomenon, should this
  affect the drawing of regions?

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Local and regional traditions in Iraq

• Some rooted in history
• Between the eighth and the twelfth centuries
  A.D., Baghdad was the flourishing center of a
  burgeoning Arab civilization.
• Najaf and Karbalaa are both high centers of
  Shia Islam.
• Under Ottoman rule, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra were
  Ottoman wilayets (provinces).
• Some are rooted in social structure
• The regional distribution of the tribes of Iraq
• Some are rooted in recent administrative
  divisions, the governorates
• Eighteen governorates (alwiya)
• Administered by a governor appointed by the
  president.
• Divided into districts (aqdhiya) headed by
  district officers (qaimaqamun)
• Divided into subdistricts (nawahy) under the
  responsibility of subdistrict officers (mudara).
• Mayors headed cities and towns.
• Municipalities were divided into several
  categories depending upon the size of local
  revenues.
• Relatively asymmetrical The population remains
  unevenly distributed.
• In 1987 Baghdad Governorate had a population
  density of about 950 persons per square kilometer
  and the Babylon Governorate 202 persons per
  square kilometer, whereas Al Muthanna Governorate
  possessed only 5.5 persons per square kilometer.
• In general the major cities are located on the
  nation's rivers, and the bulk of the rural
  population lives in the areas that are cultivated
  with water taken from the rivers.
• Baghdad, the national capital, had special
  administrative status.

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Note that At Tamim was the name that the regime
of Saddam Hussein gave to Kirkuk
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Empirical considerations stemming from local and
regional traditions

• Can the new regions build upon the
  administrative infrastructure and local human
  resources that existed prior to the establishment
  of a federal system?
• How much of these are still intact?
• Are there economic, social or other logics
  militating for the joining of specific
  governorates into one bigger region?
• Does the relative asymmetry of the existing
  administrative units raise concerns about the
  capacity of some of them should they want to
  become regions?

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The experience of Kurdistans autonomous region

• Some history
• March 1970 agreement for the creation of an
  Autonomous Region consisting of the three Kurdish
  governorates and other adjacent districts that
  were determined by census to have a Kurdish
  majority.
• In early 1988, the Autonomous Region was governed
  according to the stipulations of the 1970
  Autonomy Agreement.
• It had a twelve-member Executive Council that
  wielded both legislative and executive powers
• It had a Legislative Assembly that advised the
  council.
• The Legislative Assembly had authority to ratify
  laws proposed by the Executive Council
• It had limited powers to enact legislation
  relating to the development of "culture and
  nationalist customs of the Kurds" as well as
  other matters of strictly local scope. I
• t could question the members of the Executive
  Council concerning the latter's administrative,
  economic, educational, social, and other varied
  responsibilities
• It could withhold a vote of confidence from one
  or more of the Executive Council members.
• Officials of these two bodies were either Kurds
  or "persons well-versed in the Kurdish language,"
  and Kurdish was used for all official
  communications at the local level.
• Still, genuine self-rule did not exist in
  Kurdistan in 1988.
• The central government reserved to itself the
  power to make all decisions in matters pertaining
  to justice, to police, to internal security, and
  the administration of the frontier areas.
• The Baath Party, through the minister of state
  for regional autonomy, continued to supervise
  activities of all governing bodies in the region.
  
• The minister of justice and a special oversight
  body set up by the Court of Cassation reviewed
  all local enactments and administrative
  decisions, and they countermanded any local
  decrees that were deemed contrary to the
  "constitution, laws, or regulations" of the
  central government.

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Empirical considerations stemming from the
Kurdistan experience

• Kurdistans experience illustrates the
  fundamental difference between administrative and
  political decentralization, on the one hand, and
  federalism on the other
• The guarantees and gains from self-rule.
• Does this militate in favour of the establishment
  of regions?
• Should Kurdistan become the gold standard for the
  development of regions?
• No other ethnic regions Are confessional/sectaria
  n regions advisable?
• The possibility of a federation with variable
  geometry The example of Bosnia and Herzegovina 

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The FBiH is a federation
The RS is unitary
The RS has 63 municipalities the FBiH has 74
The FBiH has ten cantons