Kurds boycott vote on provincial elections Bill

IRAQ: Iraq's parliament passed a provincial elections Bill yesterday, but a walkout by Kurdish politicians over how to deal with the disputed oil city of Kirkuk could mean the law will not be ratified by the presidency.

Kurds make up one of three main groups, and their boycott of the vote means the Bill could be sent back to parliament.

The law is meant to pave the way for polls seen as vital to reconciling Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005, with its other communities.

"Today parliament passed the provincial elections law, in the absence of the Kurdish alliance, which walked out," Hanin Qado, a politician from the ruling Shia alliance said.

Deputy parliamentary speaker Khalid al-Attiya cast doubt on whether a law passed without the Kurds would even be ratified by Iraq's presidency council - which must approve all laws - headed by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

"We cannot have a vote with an absence of a whole faction. The vote is useless. It will be rejected by the representatives of this bloc and by the presidency council," he said.

Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki wants the poll to take place on October 1st, but the electoral commission says it will not have time to organise it, even with the law in place. The law had been held up by a dispute over what to do about voting in multiethnic Kirkuk, where a dispute is simmering between Kurds, who say the city should belong to the largely autonomous Kurdistan region, and Arabs, who want it to stay under central government authority.

Arabs and Turkmen believe Kurds have packed the city with Kurds since Saddam's downfall to try to tip the demographic balance in their favour in any vote.

Arabs encouraged to move there under Hussein's rule fear the vote will consolidate Kurdish power and they sought to postpone it, a proposal Kurdish politicians have rejected.

- (Reuters)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times