Iraqi parliament to vote on vice-presidential veto of election law

Nov 19, 2009, 13:44 GMT

Baghdad - The speaker of the Iraqi parliament said Thursday that there would be a vote this weekend on whether to overturn the vice president's veto of the country's new elections law - in a fresh hurdle for the country's planned elections.

The issue at the heart of the veto is what percentage of seats in the new parliament will be chosen by expatriate Iraqi voters.

The country had been scheduled to go to the polls on January 18, following a lengthy parliamentary tussle over setting the electoral law which will govern the ballot.

But following Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi's Wednesday veto of the law, Iraq's electoral commission said it was suspending preparations for the elections until the controversy over the electoral law was resolved.

Shiite lawmakers on Thursday announced that the Federal Supreme Court had ruled that Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi's veto of the elections law on Wednesday was invalid.

But Speaker Iyad al-Samarrai later told reporters in Baghdad that the court's ruling was 'just an opinion, and does not overturn the vice president's decision.'

Parliament would vote on al-Hashemi's veto on Saturday, al- Samarrai said, adding that he hoped 'a large number of lawmakers would show up.'

Al-Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim, on Wednesday sent the law back to parliament, asking them to increase the percentage of seats reserved for expatriate Iraqi voters from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. Most Iraqi expatriates are thought to be Sunnis.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, on Wednesday called al-Hashemi's veto 'a dangerous threat to the political process and democracy,' and urged the electoral commission to resume preparations for the polls immediately.

After the parliament reached a compromise on the thorny issue of voting in the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on November 8, the electoral commission and the Iraqi presidency set the date for the parliamentary elections for January 18.

The Iraqi constitution requires that elections be held before the end of January. The US military has said that it would begin reducing the number of its troops in Iraq roughly two months after the polls, provided the country appeared stable.

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Wednesday said the United States was 'disappointed at these developments related to (the) elections law.'

'We urge Iraqi leaders and parliament to take quick action ... so the elections can go forward,' he said.

Al-Samarrai insisted that a delay in the elections 'would not affect the timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.'

'But in the event of a constitutional vacuum and security disruptions, the government might have to delay the implementation of the timetables for the US troops' withdrawal,' he said.

'We hope to continue the process of (US troops') withdrawal from Iraq according to the agreed timetable,' he said. 'We hope to hold elections on time, despite the electoral commission's decision to halt preparations until there is a solution to the issue of the (vice president's) veto.'

The regional government in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq has also threatened to boycott the elections if the number of seats allocated to the two provinces that together make up the region is not increased.