Factional rivalry escalates in Iraq after deadly weekend attacks

The carnage has not added urgency to the debate on changing the country’s election law ahead of January’s poll, writes MICHAEL JANSEN 

SUNDAY’S MASSIVE bomb blasts that killed at least 155 people in Baghdad have exacerbated factional bickering and failed to inject urgency into deliberations of senior Iraqi politicians on an election law for the projected January parliamentary poll.

Speaking for many Iraqis, Hadi al-Ameri, a deputy from the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, castigated prime minister Nuri al-Maliki of the rival Dawa party.

He claimed Iraqi forces were capable of providing security on a daily basis and for the election.

“We’ve heard a lot of brouhaha about successes on the security front. Where are those successes?” Mr Ameri said.

Baghdad governor Salah Abdul Razzaq charged negligence or collusion by the security forces for allowing two vehicles packed with explosives to approach the justice ministry and Baghdad provincial offices. The blasts were the most deadly since 2007.

Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish legislator, said he hoped the bombings would compel the government to break the deadlock over the election law, a dispute which is undermining public confidence in the regime.

However, instead of taking a prompt decision on how to conduct elections in disputed Tamim province and its capital, Kirkuk, Mr Maliki and members of a high-level committee yesterday presented proposals to resolve the stalemate to President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his Sunni and Shia deputies, who are as much at odds on the issue as is the national assembly.

The Kurdish bloc, to which Mr Talabani’s party belongs, is threatening to boycott the election if a special election law for Tamim is passed.

The Kurds, who want to annex the province to their autonomous region, claim they are a majority in Tamim and reject any provision that would deny them the right to rule by giving greater weight to the Arab and Turkomen communities. These communities argue that the Kurds have created an artificial majority by importing their own people into the province and reject annexation by the Kurdish region.

Mr Talabani is likely veto any law the Kurds do not accept. His veto could be overruled only by a 66 per cent majority in the divided assembly.