Iraqi parliament sends elections law back to presidency - Update

Baghdad - Iraqi lawmakers on Monday decided not to override Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi's veto of the country's elections law, al-Arabiya television reported. Instead, they sent an amended version of the law back to the Iraqi presidency for approval.

The decision followed a week of renewed debate following al- Hashemi's November 19 veto of the law because he wanted 15 per cent of seats to be chosen by expatriate Iraqis, most of whom are believed to be Sunni Muslims, like the vice president.

The amended law says 10 per cent of seats in the new parliament will be chosen by absentee voters, al-Arabiya reported on its website.

Sunni lawmakers left the session ahead of the vote, in a sign that al-Hashemi may veto the new proposal, again throwing into doubt whether the elections will take place on time.

Lawmakers further decided to use 2005 population figures from the Trade Ministry, but to augment them by 2.8 per cent per year to account for population growth, to determine how many deputies will serve in the new parliament.

The increase will be applied across the board, to every province, al-Arabiya reported.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) had objected to the use of the Trade Ministry's statistics because they resulted in a net loss of seats representing the three provinces that together make up their semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq.

The KRG threatened to boycott the polls if the number of seats from the semi-autonomous Kurdish provinces was not increased.

The Iraqi constitution mandates that the parliament should include one deputy per 100,000 Iraqis. But without a census, which some fear could force a crisis over disputed territories around the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul by clarifying the ethnic makeup of those areas, parliament decided to use population data from a food-ration program administered by the Trade Ministry.

Iraq had been scheduled to go to the polls on January 18, following a lengthy parliamentary tussle over setting the electoral law which will govern the ballot.

But Iraq's electoral commission said it was suspending preparations for the elections until the controversy over the veto was resolved.

Under the Iraqi constitution, the law must be passed 60 days before the elections take place, and elections must take place before the end of January.

Iraqi Shiite Muslims have requested that the voting take place before January 23, the beginning of the Shiite religious holiday of Arbaine.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/295908,iraqi-parliament-sends-elections-law-back-to-presidency--update.html.