Iraq’s January Elections Face Near Certain Delay

Iraq’s January Elections Face Near Certain Delay
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: November 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1259082011-TWXCLtc6MChhalyMIqzsuQ


BAGHDAD — Iraq’s tortuous effort to hold its parliamentary election on schedule in January collapsed Monday, raising the prospect of a political and constitutional crisis next year as the United States begins withdrawing the majority of its combat troops.

After two days of divisive sessions and failed talks, Parliament disregarded a veto by one of the country’s vice presidents and approved new amendments that the vice president promptly indicated he would veto as well.

The moves deepened a crisis that had fleetingly seemed resolved after months of wrangling over how to set up the vote, widely seen as a barometer of Iraq’s progress toward democracy.

The failure to agree on even the terms of the election has inflamed ethnic and sectarian tensions that had waned somewhat in the last year or so. The dispute underscored the depth of mistrust that remains despite improvements in security and campaign pledges by major coalitions to unite Iraq. “Now we have only bad choices,” said Ahlam Asad, a Kurdish lawmaker who supported the new legislation.

The Parliament, or Council of Representatives, does not appear to have the necessary three-fifths majority to override a new veto, making it impossible, several senior lawmakers said, to hold the vote in January as required under the country’s Constitution.

The Obama administration and the American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, have long planned the withdrawal of American forces around the expectation that the election would take place in January.

There are now roughly 120,000 troops in the country, and a significant withdrawal is scheduled to begin in the spring. Under President Obama’s policy, fewer than 50,000 troops are to remain after next August.

Last week, after Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi’s initial veto, General Odierno said he would “not have to make any decisions until about late spring.” Even so, it appears certain that the election will not be held until at least the start of the major withdrawal.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed hope that the election would be held though it “might slip by some period of time until this is worked out.”

American and United Nations diplomats tried frantically but failed to broker a compromise between Mr. Hashimi and lawmakers who accused him of trying to bolster Sunnis’ chances by widening a quota for Iraqis living abroad. The Parliament did not override Mr. Hashimi’s veto. Instead the Shiite and Kurdish blocs amended the election law — 133-17 — after Sunni and secular parties walked out of the session in protest. Of 275 lawmakers, 125 did not vote or did not attend, most of them Sunnis.

The vote reinforced divisions that have previously threatened to plunge the country into civil war, with Sunnis feeling disenfranchised by a Shiite-led government. Mr. Hashimi’s veto, intended to increase Sunni participation in the election, instead appeared to have rallied Shiites and Kurds to align against the Sunnis.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his bloc supported the new law, having sharply criticized the veto. A Maliki spokesman, Ali al-Mousawi, said the prime minister favored holding an election as soon as possible.

The three-member Presidency Council, which includes Mr. Hashimi, President Jalal Talabani, and a second vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, now has 10 days to approve or veto the law.

“The government will keep working as it is right now, and we will not postpone the election too much,” Mr. Mousawi said. “The Council of Representatives has reached a new formula. If there is a veto, then it is going to be a different matter.”

The election is supposed to be held Jan. 30, 45 days before the Parliament’s constitutional mandate expires. The Constitution allows a one-month extension.

In a country with little democratic precedent, what happens if a new Parliament has not yet been elected remains unclear. A sense of crisis loomed Monday, with lawmakers accusing one another of violating the Constitution for an electoral edge.

“It’s a conflict of wills,” Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni member of Parliament from Nineveh, said angrily after the vote, asserting that the new law would disenfranchise Sunni voters.

Many officials warned that the election could be delayed until March or even later. With an important Islamic holiday beginning this weekend, talks to resolve the dispute cannot begin until next month, after the Presidency Council reviews the new law. The Parliament does not have another session until Dec. 8, a spokesman for its speaker said.

Mr. Hashimi vetoed the first law over a clause that reserved 5 percent of parliamentary seats for small religious and ethnic minorities and Iraqi refugees abroad, many of whom are believed to be Sunnis opposed to the government. He said the quota should be raised to 15 percent.

In response, Shiite and Kurdish parties rewrote the rules for calculating the voter rolls and thus the distribution of seats — to their own benefit, according to Sunnis. The new law still reserves seats for minority groups, but counts Iraqis abroad in the provinces they fled from rather than as a separate quota.

Mr. Nujaifi said under the new law, Sunnis in Nineveh would lose as many as eight seats, assuming voting on ethnic lines. Nineveh and Kirkuk in the north include disputed territories claimed by Arabs and Kurds.

Some Sunnis suggested the veto backfired, leaving Sunnis living abroad in a worse position.

Mr. Hashimi sent a letter to Parliament on Monday that appeared to signal openness to a compromise, but it was not clear that the Shiite and Kurdish majority even discussed it. “Unfortunately the first law was unjust and irresponsible to the displaced people and those abroad,” Mr. Hashimi’s spokesman, Abdul Ellah Kadhim, said after the vote, “while now it is unjust and irresponsible to the people abroad and inside Iraq as well.”

The threat of violence, often with a political hue, remains ever-present in Iraq. And shortly after the vote, gunmen in a passing sedan fired at a motorcade belonging to the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who recently aligned with Mr. Hashimi. Mr. Allawi was not in the motorcade at the time; two of his guards were wounded, according to the Interior Ministry.

Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Saad al-Izzy, Duraid Adnan and Mohammed Hussein.