Iraqi clerics urge end to election bill impasse

Iraqi clerics have unanimously called on lawmakers to end a protracted deadlock over a disputed electoral law that threatens to delay the key January polls.

A representative for prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali al-Sistani, warned of the security threats that any delay would entail after two massive bombings killed 153 people in central Baghdad last Sunday.

"The current period is very sensitive, and terrorist forces are working to weaken people's confidence in the government and political parties," Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai told worshipers at the weekly Friday prayers in the city of Karbala.

"The time left to organize elections has become shorter -- they must take place on time because holding them on their current date is a democratic and constitutional principle," he urged.

Sunni clerics in the shrine city of Najaf delivered a similar message, also echoed by Shia clerics from the popular Moqtada Sadr party in Baghdad and from the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council in Najaf.

A prolonged stalemate over the bill has raised concerns about the prospects of delaying the poll, originally scheduled for January 16, as electoral authorities may not have enough time to organize them.

The law that will govern the national election was firstly delayed by disagreements on whether to establish an open list system under which individual candidates are identified or a closed list that requires ballot papers to display only the names of parties and not candidates.

Controversy over the fate of religiously-diverse Kirkuk and its surrounding oilfields topped the discussion with Kurdish parliamentarians demanding the northern city be incorporated in their semi-autonomous region in the north.

Arab-Iraqi politicians and the city's Turkman minority, however, vehemently reject the notion, insisting that Kirkuk and its nearby oilfields should remain an integral part of Iraq.

The latest attempt to put the draft electoral law to a vote failed on Thursday as the parliament fell short of a quorum in the absence of protesting Kurdish lawmakers.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110022§ionid=351020201.