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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Electoral Commission said
Sunday that national elections will be held Jan. 30,
including in areas now wracked by violence.
Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral
Commission of Iraq, said the commission decided the
elections will take place at the end of January.
Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a national
assembly, which will among other things draft a
permanent constitution. The vote is seen as a major
step toward building democracy after years of rule
by Saddam Hussein.
Areas still beset by violence - including the
insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, as
well as northern Mosul - will participate in the
elections, Ayar said.
"No Iraqi province will be excluded because the law
considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore it
is not legal to exclude any province," he said.
The Iraqi voters will choose representatives for a
275-member national assembly, provincial councils
and the national council for Kurdistan.
Ayar said that 122 political parties out of 195
applications were accepted and registered for the
elections.
The commission has asked the United Nations to send
international monitors for the elections. Ayar said
the number of U.N. experts who have already arrived
in Iraq is around 35, but said "we need as many
monitors as possible."
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