“In order to prevent the repetition of problems that occurred in the past, the Federal Supreme Court decided to delete the ethnicity question box and said the purpose of the census is only for development and not related to resolving problems and disputes,” Mahdi al-Alaq, president of the Iraqi Society for Statistical Sciences and an advisor to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told Rudaw’s Fuad Rahim on Friday.
Alaq said that the decision to remove the question about ethnicity was taken with approval from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). It is also supported by UNFPA as “technical measures in line with international recommendations,” according to Alaq.
Iraq will carry out a census in November. It will be the first general population count conducted since 1997 and the first to include the Kurdistan Region’s provinces since 1987.
“After a political agreement was reached to remove the ethnicity box in 2020, all the objections of the census were removed from the political sphere,” Alaq said, adding that the main obstacles to conducting a census previously were related to issues in the areas disputed between the federal government and the KRG.
In Kirkuk, there is a debate over how the census should be conducted and what it will mean for the future of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen who call the province home.
Ahmad Sabir, a Kurd, has participated in five censuses in the city. He has been repairing watches for 50 years and has a modest shop in Rahim Awa market.
He said that in the 1957 census, Kurds were the majority in the city, but is worried that deliberate demographic shifts over time have altered Kirkuk’s makeup.
“Now, if the census is conducted, the Kurds will not succeed because the governor has brought in southern and central Arabs and given them houses in the southern neighborhoods of Kirkuk, provided them with all necessities, and transferred their food vouchers to Kirkuk,” Sabir told Rudaw’s Hiwa Hussamadin on Friday.
There is a history of Arabization in the city under the former Baathist regime and the current governor has been accused of reviving the practice.
Iraq’s 2005 constitution lays out a path to resolve a dispute over whether Kirkuk and other disputed territory in the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Salahaddin should come within the borders of the Kurdistan Region or fall under the control of the federal government. It also includes measures aimed at rectifying Baathist-era Arabization policies. Article 140 dictates three steps - normalization of the situation, a census, and a referendum - to be completed by 2007. It has never been done. The failure to fully implement the article has been cited as one of the main reasons for continued attempts at demographic change in these areas.
Sherzad Samad, head of the elections office for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Kirkuk, said that should the census proceed, Article 140 must be followed.
“If the census is conducted, the provisions of Article 140 must be the main conditions for registering the name of any person who is registered in Kirkuk province,” he said.
Qahtan al-Wandawi, leader of the Turkmen Front in Kirkuk, stated that Turkmen support the census, provided that there are no clauses concerning ethnicity or religion.
Arabs are also cautious. "We are technically in favor of the census, but politically I think it will cause us a lot of problems," said Hatem Tai, spokesperson for an Arab coalition.
Contrary to the political factions, the mood on the streets of Kirkuk is welcoming of the census.
“I am in favor of a census in Iraq and Kirkuk because it is very important and necessary,” said Majid Bakr, a Kirkuk resident.
“It is in everyone's interest to be counted and not to erode anyone's rights, as in the past,” said Zaki Niyaz, another Kirkuk resident.
The latest population census in 1997 counted 19 million Iraqis. A separate count put the population of the Kurdish provinces at 2.8 million. The total population now is an estimated 43 million.