Iraq presidency puts January vote in doubt

Iraq's general election in January was thrown into doubt on Monday when the war-torn country's presidential council demanded a greater say for minorities and nationals living abroad.

President Jalal Talabani told AFP he wants parliament to change the electoral law governing the vote so that the number of seats set aside for minorities, including Christians, and Iraqi expatriates will be tripled.

"The presidential council asked the parliament to increase the percentage of seats for minorities and Iraqis living abroad from five to 15 percent," he said before leaving Iraqi Kurdistan for a state visit to France.

The Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, part of the three-member council, went further and demanded on state television that the law be changed or he would use his power to veto the vote.

"If the parliament does not correct the rate of representatives (of minorities), I will adopt my veto of the law," Hashemi said.

The polling date would have to be postponed if debate is reopened on the election law, an Iraqi electoral commission official, Hamdiya al-Husseini, explained to AFP.

Under the constitution, the presidential council can veto a proposed law a maximum of two times before the bill is returned to parliament for approval by a vote of at least 60 percent of MPs.

"If the law is modified, that would affect the date of the election and the work of the commission," Husseini said.

The terms of the electoral law guarantee eight seats for Iraq's minorities and eight so-called compensatory seats, which are allocated between citizens living abroad and smaller parties seeking national representation.

The current five percent of seats allocated is a reduction on the 15 percent under the law that governed Iraq's December 2005 general election, the first to take place after the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

A Hashemi adviser told AFP that the tripling of seats -- from 16 to 48 -- was necessary to promote national reconciliation.

"We have to give real representation to the Iraqis who fled abroad because most of those people were Sunni, or close to the old regime," of Saddam, said Saifaldin Abdul Rahman.

The matter is also considered important to President Talabani, a Kurd, as many of Iraq's minority citizens fled to the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan during the rule of Saddam, who was executed in December 2006.

Talabani made the request to parliament after receiving a letter from Kurdish MPs asking him not to approve the electoral law.

"We sent a letter to Mr Talabani to ask him not to ratify the law because the percentage of seats is not what it should be," said Kamal Kirkuki, president of the Kurdish parliament, based in the Kurdistan capital Arbil.

With an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis living abroad, the Sunnis are counting on the exiles' participation to boost their showing.

The Kurds, meanwhile, are counting on increasing their influence in parliament through the large number of religious and ethnic minorities living in their region in northern Iraq.

After weeks of wrangling, MPs earlier this month finally passed the electoral law for the contest, which the presidential council has said it wants to be held on January 18.

The number of seats in parliament has been increased from 275 to 323 to reflect the demographic changes in Iraq.