A long-sought political consensus in Iraq over how to conduct crucial upcoming elections fell apart on Tuesday over the thorny issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi lawmaker said.
The new snag came as an al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad on Sunday that killed at least 155 people.
Many fear the political deadlock over the new law will delay elections, now scheduled for January, and open the door to renewed violence in Iraq after the country stepped back from the brink of civil war two years ago.
SPLIT
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, told reporters that an emergency proposal by the nation’s leaders to break the deadlock over the election law had fallen apart over the fractious northern city split between Arabs and Kurds.
Othman said the vote over the election law would not take place on Tuesday. There was no information about when the matter would be addressed.
Just one day after the massive security failure in the capital, there appeared to be quick progress on the election law. With Iraq’s public already angry over the bombing and the resurgence of violence, the politicians appeared to not want to risk further angering people by delaying the elections with their internal wrangling.
On Monday night, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and others agreed on a compromise over voting in Kirkuk as the Shiite-dominated government pushed to smooth over differences in the divided parliament and wrap up the law so elections could proceed.
COUNTING KIRKUK
However, the compromise later fell apart because it did not address a key dispute, leaving it instead to the electoral commission: how to count voters in Kirkuk, which is claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkomens.
Arabs favor a plan that would use the 2004 voter registry, likely meaning Arab voters would be much more represented than Kurds. The Kurds favor a proposal by the UN that would use voter records from 2009, but only for a four-year period until the Kirkuk issue can be further clarified.
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