BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq on Thursday postponed its provincial elections due in October after MPs failed to agree the necessary legislation in time, in a blow for US-backed efforts to consolidate national reconciliation.
"I can confirm to you that we have lost the chance to hold the elections in October," Qassem al-Aboudi, administrative director of Iraq's electoral commission, told AFP after a meeting with the United Nations.
Iraq was due to go to the polls on October 1 but the long-awaited legislation that would govern the ballot has faced repeated delays over the political treatment of the disputed northern oil province of Kirkuk.
The complex issues over who will control the energy-rich province, claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, has repeatedly dogged passage of the provincial elections bill, despite US efforts to pressure Baghdad.
Thursday's decision was a major setback for Washington and the United Nations which viewed the ballot as critical to consolidating Iraq's fledgling political process and reconciling its deeply divided ethnic groups.
"We cannot hold an election in October because we need three months to prepare for the polls after the election law is passed," commission member Hamdiya al-Husseinia said.
US officials in Baghdad were not immediately available to comment.
Parliament broke for summer recess on Wednesday without passing the contentious bill despite a new proposal put forward by the United Nations, which called for a year-long freeze on issues related to Kirkuk.
The proposal, which called for the polls to be postponed in Kirkuk but go ahead on schedule in Iraq's 17 other provinces, failed to win approval from various Arab and Turkmen factions.
The UN suggested the elections in Kirkuk be delayed until December 2009, thus giving Iraq's various political factions time to hammer out new terms to a power-sharing arrangement for the region.
The disagreement centres on an article of original draft legislation that would have divided power amongst the province's Arab, Kurds and Turkmen communities, but is opposed by the Kurds on the basis of their superior numbers and historical claims to the city.
Ethnic tension has dogged Kirkuk since the US-led invasion of 2003 that ousted now executed dictator Saddam Hussein. The province has come under the spotlight with the introduction of the bill governing provincial elections.
On Thursday, several hundred Turkmen took to the streets waving Iraqi flags and calling for the removal of the United Nations envoy for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, accusing him of favouring the Kurds, an AFP reporter witnessed.
"We ask the UN to investigate Kirkuk events, and to change its 'Kurdish representative' Staffan de Mistura in Iraq," one banner read.
The protest was the latest of a recent series of political rallies in Kirkuk that have sometimes proved fatal.
At least 22 people were killed more than a week ago in a suicide bombing during a protest rally held by Kurds over the same issue in Kirkuk and gunfire in the panic that followed.
Under Saddam's regime, Kirkuk was the scene of a massive population upheaval with tens of thousands of Kurdish residents expelled to make way for Arab settlers.
Since 2003, Kurdish politicians have stoked tensions by encouraging Kurds to return.
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