Iraq's January vote placed in doubt by presidency
Posted: 16 November 2009 2300 hrs

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SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq : Iraq's general election in January was thrown into doubt on Monday when the war-torn country's presidential council demanded more clout be given to minorities and nationals living abroad.

President Jalal Talabani told AFP he wanted parliament to change the electoral law governing the vote so that the number of seats set aside for minorities, including Christians, and Iraqi expatriates would 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 current 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 reign 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 the seats is not normal," said Kamal Kirkuki, president of the Kurdish parliament, based in the Kurdistan capital Arbil.

"We asked him to ask the Iraqi (Baghdad) parliament to review the law."

- AFP /ls