Iraqi elections law hangs on Kirkuk

Oct 20, 2009, 15:34 GMT

Baghdad - The Iraqi parliament continued to debate a new elections law on Tuesday, as negotiations snagged on the thorny question of voting in the contested, northern city of Kirkuk.

'An agreement between the political blocs on the fate of the elections in Kirkuk is still far away,' Iraqi lawmaker Abbas al-Bayati told the German Press Agency dpa.

'I don't think the parliament will vote at today's meeting on the electoral law,' he said.

A vote on a law to cover the conduct of parliamentary elections scheduled for January had been expected Monday, but was postponed at the last minute as lawmakers once again failed to agree on a formula for conducting voting in the disputed city.

A follow-up session had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was again postponed when not enough members of parliament turned up for a vote.

'The United Nations' solution for resolving the crisis was not welcomed by people inside Kirkuk,' al-Bayati said. 'The parliament is still moving in a narrow tunnel.'

Many Iraqi Kurds hope to make Kirkuk the capital of a future independent state. Arab Iraqi politicians, allied with the city's sizeable Turkman minority, regard Kirkuk and its nearby oilfields as an integral part of Iraq.

The city and the surrounding province of al-Tamim were left out of voting in January's provincial elections after parliamentarians failed to agree on provisions covering voting in the province.

Also to be decided is whether voters will choose between individuals, in an 'open-list' vote, or for parties, in a 'closed-list' vote.

Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have called on the parliament to pass an open-list system, and have threatened to withdraw from January's elections if a closed-list system is chosen.

The Sadrist Movement held their primary elections to choose candidates for the general election due in January last Friday.

Iraq's two vice presidents, Adil Abdel-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashemi, likewise back an open-list system in the coming parliamentary elections.

Abdel-Mahdi said that the open list system 'provides voters with the chance to choose efficient and good candidates.'

Top Shiite cleric Ayatollah al-Sistani and Ammar al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, have also gone on record as favouring an open-list system.

Iraqi political parties have been seeking a consensus solution to both debates. Failing that, the law will come to a majority vote to allow the elections to take place on time