Iraq's oil-rich Basra province in autonomy move

Iraq's independent electoral commission announced plans on Sunday to collect signatures in support of a referendum to transform the oil-rich province of Basra into an autonomous region.

Signatures would be collected from Dec. 15 to Jan. 14 in 34 centres across the predominantly Shi'ite province, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said in a statement.

According to the IHEC, there are 1,409,393 eligible voters in the province of Basra which includes the city of Basra, Iraq's second port along with Umm Al-Qasr and the country's economic nerve centre.

"If after the certification of the signature collection process the signature list reaches the required 10 percent of the 'Final Voters List', a referendum will be held within three months," the statement said.

More than 70 percent of Iraq's oil is produced in Basra and its port is used for 80 percent of crude exports.

The region has been riven with the rivalries among three main Shi'ite factions - the former rebel Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), the Mahdi Army of firebrand cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and the smaller Fadhila party.

If the referendum is organised and accepted, it will transform Basra into an autonomous region with the same rights as Kurdistan, the autonomous region in northern Iraq which also enjoys considerable oil wealth.

Over the past year, the Kurdish regional government has angered Baghdad by finalising its own energy law and signing contracts with global oil majors despite the absence of national oil legislation.

The national law has been delayed in parliament over bitter differences among the assembly's Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers over the sharing of the revenues generated from oil sales.