debrobb
07-30-2008, 10:21 AM
BAGHDAD, July 30 (VOI) - A lawmaker on Wednesday said a specialist parliamentarian committee left Kirkuk's controversial issue to the political bloc chiefs and found a solution to all other pending items of the provincial councils' law.
"The specialist committee found a solution to an appeal filed by the Presidential Board over the use of religious symbols in elections and the quota for women," MP Hashin al-Taie from Parliament's committee of regions, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI).
President Jalal Talabani and his deputy Adel Abdel Mahdi appealed the provincial elections law and sent it back to the Parliament, citing violations of national consensus and unsettling the required quota for women.
The MP pointed out "there are two views on the use of religious symbols; one allows displaying the religious symbols for a political entity provided that they stand for living figures, while the second calls to allow the entire pictures."
"The two views would be tabled in Parliament to select the one that could get the majority," he added.
Iraq's Parliament passed a provincial elections bill a week ago, but a walkout by Kurdish lawmakers over how to deal with the disputed oil city of Kirkuk unleashed heated debate about it.
The law is meant to pave the way for polls seen as vital to reconciling Iraq's factions, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005, with its other communities.
The MP conceded "the committee faced difficulties in setting a quota for women due to the open slate system," adding "an agreement was struck to give a women quota through the electoral commission."
When asked about the negotiations on Kirkuk, the MP said "a deal has been struck to discuss the paper proposed by the chief of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Stephan De Mistura".
He highlighted "the paper called for postponing elections in Kirkuk and forming a committee to share the rule in the city," adding "the bloc leaders agreed to discuss it after making a number of amendments."
Al-Taie expected the report of "agreed item to be presented in the Parliament next Sunday."
The law had been held up by a dispute over what to do about voting in multi-ethnic 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 remain under central government authority.
Arabs and Turkmen believe Kurds have stacked the city with Kurds since the downfall of Saddam in 2003 to try to tip the demographic balance in their favour in any vote.
Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein's rule fear the vote will consolidate Kurdish power and they sought to postpone it, a proposal Kurdish politicians have rejected.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and add another article that the Kurds found unacceptable: that each ethnic or sectarian group gets a set allocation of seats and voting is between individual candidates from those groups. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen get 10 seats each. Minority Christians get two.
"We walked out because of the illegality of this article and because the speaker wanted a secret vote, which is not constitutional," said Fouad Massoum, head of the Kurdish bloc.
Washington has been urging a speedy provincial election, which it sees as a pillar of national reconciliation, but the poll is also proving a potential flashpoint for tensions.
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=87631&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1
"The specialist committee found a solution to an appeal filed by the Presidential Board over the use of religious symbols in elections and the quota for women," MP Hashin al-Taie from Parliament's committee of regions, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI).
President Jalal Talabani and his deputy Adel Abdel Mahdi appealed the provincial elections law and sent it back to the Parliament, citing violations of national consensus and unsettling the required quota for women.
The MP pointed out "there are two views on the use of religious symbols; one allows displaying the religious symbols for a political entity provided that they stand for living figures, while the second calls to allow the entire pictures."
"The two views would be tabled in Parliament to select the one that could get the majority," he added.
Iraq's Parliament passed a provincial elections bill a week ago, but a walkout by Kurdish lawmakers over how to deal with the disputed oil city of Kirkuk unleashed heated debate about it.
The law is meant to pave the way for polls seen as vital to reconciling Iraq's factions, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005, with its other communities.
The MP conceded "the committee faced difficulties in setting a quota for women due to the open slate system," adding "an agreement was struck to give a women quota through the electoral commission."
When asked about the negotiations on Kirkuk, the MP said "a deal has been struck to discuss the paper proposed by the chief of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Stephan De Mistura".
He highlighted "the paper called for postponing elections in Kirkuk and forming a committee to share the rule in the city," adding "the bloc leaders agreed to discuss it after making a number of amendments."
Al-Taie expected the report of "agreed item to be presented in the Parliament next Sunday."
The law had been held up by a dispute over what to do about voting in multi-ethnic 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 remain under central government authority.
Arabs and Turkmen believe Kurds have stacked the city with Kurds since the downfall of Saddam in 2003 to try to tip the demographic balance in their favour in any vote.
Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein's rule fear the vote will consolidate Kurdish power and they sought to postpone it, a proposal Kurdish politicians have rejected.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and add another article that the Kurds found unacceptable: that each ethnic or sectarian group gets a set allocation of seats and voting is between individual candidates from those groups. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen get 10 seats each. Minority Christians get two.
"We walked out because of the illegality of this article and because the speaker wanted a secret vote, which is not constitutional," said Fouad Massoum, head of the Kurdish bloc.
Washington has been urging a speedy provincial election, which it sees as a pillar of national reconciliation, but the poll is also proving a potential flashpoint for tensions.
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=87631&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1