Iraq election delay due to legal wrangling

ELECTION DELAY: Provincial elections will are now unlikely to take place in October as the voting bill faces rejection by the Presidency Council. (Getty Images)

Provincial elections in Iraq due in October will almost certainly be delayed due to claims of procedural impropriety during voting on a bill giving legal effect to the ballot, lawmakers said Wednesday.

Iraq's parliament passed a draft provincial election law Tuesday that would allow voting to take place in the country's 18 provinces later this year, but the legislation could now face rejection by the Presidency Council, MPs said.

The Presidency Council, which approves parliamentary legislation, is expected to put down the bill because lawmakers have charged that voting on the bill on Tuesday was carried out in secret, violating procedures.

"The elections will be later than their scheduled time," said Ali Al-Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's Dawa party, one of the key blocs in the 275 seat Iraqi parliament.

Adeeb charged that Tuesday's legislative process had been "a breach of the law".

Although Kurds boycotted the vote, parliament nevertheless managed to get the bill passed, a crucial move if the electoral commission is to make the necessary preparations for polls to go ahead as scheduled on Oct. 1.

But Adeeb and other parliamentarians charged that the ballot was carried out in secret, violating parliamentary bylaws.

"At minimum, the election will not be held in the first of October," Saleem Abdullah, spokesman for main Sunni bloc, the National Concord Front, told newswire AFP, adding that he now expected the vote to be held in January next year.

The delay would be a blow to Washington and especially the outgoing administration of President George W. Bush, which sees the elections as a key step towards achieving national reconciliation among Iraq's warring communities.

The Kurds in particular have opposed the bill because of disputes over how to constitute the provincial council of Kirkuk, the northern oil province claimed by both the Arabs and Kurds.

In an official statement the Kurdistan government called Tuesday's vote unconstitutional and detrimental to the democratic process.

"The speaker of the parliament has committed a constitutional violation, and a breach of the interior system of the parliament," it said.

"[The move] aims to obstruct the national democratic process, and the provincial assemblies elections, and it is trying to disrupt the political process in the country."

Kirkuk, which lies 255 kilometres north of Baghdad, is claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, and a referendum to decide its fate was to have been held last December but was delayed after UN intervention.

Kurdish leaders agreed to a six-month postponement of the vote at the recommendation of the United Nations, but lawmakers have raised concerns over Kirkuk's interim status.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution stipulated that a referendum on Kirkuk be held by the end of 2007 to decide whether its oil wealth should be integrated into the autonomous Kurdish region.

Kirkuk has been gripped by ethnic tension since the US-led invasion of 2003, with Arab and Turkmen residents fearful they would be marginalised if the city were handed over to the Kurds.

Under the regime of ousted and executed dictator Saddam Hussein, Kirkuk was the scene of a massive population upheaval with tens of thousands of Kurdish residents expelled to make way for Arab settlers.

Today it has a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians, and since 2003 Kurdish politicians have encouraged Kurds to settle there.

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