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Iraq's parliament must pass elections law
for this year
31.8.2008
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If
the elections law has not been passed by then, the
polls will slip into next year.
August
31, 2008
BAGHDAD, Iraq, — Iraq's parliament must pass
a contentious elections law by mid-September in
order to allow anticipated provincial polls to be
held this year, the Electoral Commission said on
Saturday.
"If the law is passed by September 9 or 10, we can
hold the elections on December 22. If it's later
than that, we will try for December 31," Commission
head Faraj al-Haidari told Reuters.
If the elections law has not been passed by then,
the polls will slip into next year.
Further delays in the provincial vote was initially
scheduled for Oct. 1.
The law has been held up by an impasse over how to
treat the oil-rich city of Kirkuk,www.ekurd.net
which minority Kurds
regard as part of their traditional homeland.
The city's Turkmen and Arabs, many of whom moved to
Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's policy to "Arabise"
the city, reject the Kurds' ambition to make it part
of their autonomous Kurdistan region.
In early August,www.ekurd.net
parliament adjourned for
its summer break after lawmakers failed in
last-minute negotiations to find a compromise on how
Kirkuk will be treated in the elections law.
An earlier version of the law was vetoed by Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and sent back to
parliament.
U.S. and U.N. officials hope the elections will give
a voice to Sunni Arabs and some Shi'ite factions
that stayed away from previous local elections, but
it does risk becoming a power struggle among
Shi'ites.
The vote is seen as important in helping the
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
translate the sharp drop in violence over the last
year into progress in rebuilding Iraq's economy and
infrastructure, reforming and modernising
government, and fending off renewed bloodshed.
Yet it will not be easy for lawmakers, who are due
to resume work around September 9, to quickly
resolve their differences over an explosive issue
such as Kirkuk.
Some Iraqi politicians have criticised the United
States for pressuring Iraq to hold the vote right
away.
Another question is how many Iraqis, weary and
hardened after more than five years of war, will
show up to vote.
Haidari said that, following previous elections,
around 17 million Iraqis were registered. Some 2
million have come to election centres to
double-check their registration, he said.
Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city and it
lies just south border of the Kurdistan autonomous
region, the population is a mix of majority Kurds
and minority of Arabs, Christians and
Turkmen. lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. Kurds
have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk,
which they call "the Kurdish Jerusalem."
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city
and other disputed areas.
The article also calls for conducting a census to be
followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants
decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed
to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having
it as an independent province.
The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had forced over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up
their homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the
city and the region's oil industry.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, Reuters
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