Baghdad, November 01: Iraq’s electoral body warned Sunday that polls set for January will have to be delayed if procedures are not ironed out in the next two days, as a parliamentary vote on an election law was again postponed.
Lawmakers are deadlocked over the law that will govern the January vote intense lobbying from the United Nations, as well as pressure from Iraqi religious leaders and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
“We are entering a critical period,” Qassim al-Abboudi, a senior official in Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), said.
“We have told parliament that if it is not possible to approve the law in the next few days, they have at least to provide the electoral commission with the system to be used, the number of seats and the quota for women and minorities.
“If time runs out without getting this information, then the election date will be in danger.”
Asked when time would run out, Abboudi said he did not want to give a specific date to avoid negatively affecting discussions in parliament, but Faraj al-Haidari, the chief of the IHEC, said on Saturday that procedural details would have to be in place by Tuesday.
Stalemate over the bill has sparked concern that the polls, scheduled for January 16, will have to be delayed because electoral authorities will not have enough time to organise them.
The electoral law is supposed to be in place 90 days before voting takes place. Constitutionally, the election must be held by January 31.
Lawmakers are deadlocked over the status of the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed region along the border with the autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Kirkuk’s Kurds have long demanded incorporation into Kurdistan, but that has met fierce opposition from the province’s Arabs and Turkmen.
Mahmud Othman, a Kurdish MP, said that a vote on the electoral law “was not scheduled for today’s session because there was no agreement between the parties.”
“There is a possibility of reaching an agreement on Monday.”
He added that several proposals were currently being discussed, including those from the United Nations and a senior political committee that includes Maliki.
—Agencies