Iraqi elections to be delayed for a week

Nov 9, 2009, 16:08 GMT

Baghdad - Iraq is now scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on January 21, the country's electoral commission announced Monday, five days later than originally scheduled.

The delay followed weeks of tense negotiations among parliamentarians over voting in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk and its environs that had repeatedly delayed a vote on the elections law.

Many Iraqi Kurds hope to make Kirkuk the capital of a future independent state. Iraqi Arabs and Turkmens view the city, and its nearby oil fields, as integral parts of Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hailed the compromise, the result of weeks of negotiations capped by a 12-hour session, as 'a great achievement for the political process and the democratic experience.'

'Holding elections on time, and according to the open-list system, is a historic victory for the will of the Iraqi people, and a strong response to the terrorists and remnants of the former regime who are trying to shake the country's security, destroy the political process and bring the country back to the age of oppression,' he said.

Under Sunday's deal, voters in Kirkuk will use the most recent voting lists and will vote at the same time as the rest of the country.

Kurdish voters had pressed for the most recent voting lists to be used, believing they would reflect the return of Kurds to the region since the 2003, US-led invasion.

Arab and Turkmen politicians had viewed that increase with suspicion, and had asked for the voter registration rolls to be examined.

The most recent UN-sponsored compromise solution proposed making the results from the Kirkuk elections provisional, subject to a review of the voter rolls within a year.

Sheikh Khalid al-Atiya, who chaired Sunday's marathon session because the speaker of the parliament, Iyad al-Samarrai, was attending an international conference, praised parliamentarians for their 'great efforts' to approve the law.

Iraqi Kurdish member of parliament Khalid Shuani, speaking to the German Press Agency dpa on Monday, hailed the law as the result of 'a national demand that found a solution to Kirkuk and a way to include it in the elections.'

Akram Tarzi, a Turkmen member of parliament, likewise praised the law, noting that it came after 'sensitive and difficult deliberations.'

'Despite our reservations on some of the articles in the new law, passing it was an important achievement,' he told dpa. 'It guarantees a special status to Kirkuk and its contribution in elections at the same time as the rest of Iraqi cities.'

The Independent High Electoral Commission on Monday announced that the new parliament would also consist of 323 seats, an increase of 48 seats from the current legislature. The election law passed Sunday requires one representative for every 100,000 Iraqis, as calculated by the number of food-rations cards.