Iraqi election head warns parliament of vote delay

AP via Breitbart ^ | November 4, 2009 | By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

[Jet Jaguar]

Iraqi lawmakers have only a day left to agree on a new bill that would enable the country to hold key parliament elections in January, according to remarks Wednesday by the country's election commission chairman.

The chairman, Faraj al-Haidari, said he warned the legislators that if they don't approve the election law by the end of Thursday, the country's nationwide vote will be delayed

Any postponement in the Jan. 16 balloting could undermine the country's fragile stability and impact U.S. plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, now scheduled to ramp up after the vote. The possibility of the delay is additionally worrying because it is at times of political instability that violence tends to rise in Iraq.

"We informed the Parliament that if the election law is not legislated within 48 hours, it would be difficult and impossible to carry out the elections," al-Haidari said.

Iraqi lawmakers have been struggling to agree on the law, needed to carry out the vote. The key sticking point is the issue of who should be allowed to vote in Kirkuk, a disputed oil-rich city in the north that is claimed by both Kurds and Arabs.

Kurds consider Kirkuk a Kurdish city and want it part of their self-ruled region. But the Arab-led central government vehemently opposes anything that would remove Kirkuk from its control.