AFP | May 28,2012 | 22:56 JORDAN POST
BASRA, Iraq — A top politician in Iraq’s oil-rich Basra Province moved on Monday to give the area more autonomy from the central government, three years after the failure of a similar bid.
Basra provincial council chief Sabah Al Bazzouni told reporters he was making the push because of a prolonged political crisis that has seen Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki threatened with a vote of no confidence and criticism that he has centralised power.
“We will call the members of the provincial councils, and the heads of the provincial councils, to announce a southern region,” Bazzouni told a news conference in Basra.
The vast majority of the country’s oil exports, upon which Iraq’s budget is almost entirely dependent, pass through Basra.
“If they do not respond to this call, we will announce the region of Basra,” Bazzouni said.
Iraq’s constitution allows for any province or provinces to become an autonomous region, like the three-governorate Kurdish region in the country’s north, by way of a referendum.
All that is required to trigger such a plebiscite is the approval by a tenth of the province’s voters, or a third of that province’s provincial council members.
In January 2009, Basra launched a petition to turn itself into an autonomous region, but failed to collect enough signatures.
READ MORE HERE: http://jordantimes.com/basra-to-make-renewed-push-for-autonomy
In the context of Iraq ‘regional autonomy’ is not the same as in other countries. The so-called ‘autonomous region’ of ‘Kurdistan’ is de-facto independent. The central government has no authority what-so-ever in the Kurdish region of ‘North Iraq’. Consequently – while more autonomy for Basrah sounds ok as such – in the context of Iraq it is dangerous. If Basra compares its autonomy to Kurdistan then it will mean de-facto independence and therefore de-facto a break-up of Iraq.