Iraqi elections law hangs on Kirkuk (Roundup)

Oct 20, 2009, 17:28 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.

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.

Many Iraqi Kurds hope to make Kirkuk the capital of a future independent state. Arab Iraqi politicians, allied with the city's sizable 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.

'The city of Kirkuk is the main problem,' Samira al-Moussawi, a member of parliament with the mostly Shiite National Iraqi Alliance, confirmed.

'It is not reasonable to expect a solution to this complex problem now. The present circumstances are not favourable,' she told dpa. 'But we hope to decide on a new law this week, to prevent the postponement of the elections.'

'There are good intentions to resolve all points of difference,' she added. 'This intransigence threatens to plunge the country into chaos and a constitutional vacuum.'

Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Othman told dpa that the dispute had centred on the registration of voters in the city, with Arab and Turkmen parliamentarians accusing Kurds of manipulating voter rolls in their favour.

'We said we didn't have a problem with examining the voter rolls in Kirkuk if the examination also included all provinces where there are questions about voter registration - including Mosul, Najaf and Karbala,' he said.

'But they rejected this proposal, seeming to prefer postponing the elections or returning to the previous law,' Othman told dpa.

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.

'The big political blocs are seeking a consensus solution,' independent lawmaker Ezz al-Din al-Dawla told dpa. 'We want to put the points of difference to a vote in parliament and have done with it.'

'The atmosphere within the halls of the parliament is charged,' he said. 'I can see no intention of resolving the dispute harmoniously.'