Iraqi Parties Circle Around Election Bill

The wording is not yet fixed as the various Iraqi parties are still wrangling over fundamental issues.

“We completed the second reading of the Council of Representatives election law on July 27 and began discussing the individual articles, but we haven’t finished,” Ali al-Shilah, a member of parliament from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc, told IWPR.

Jawad al-Juburi, a parliamentarian from another big Shia-dominated group, the Sadrist Movement, said all the big issues were yet to be agreed.

“Issues like open or closed candidate lists, ‘lost’ votes [cast for parties that fail to pass the threshold to win seats in parliament], and whether Iraq should be a single constituency or divided into many – all of those need further discussion,” Juburi said.

The candidate list issue is the most sensitive, since it decides whether voters get to choose individuals or just parties. The major parties are being coy about their stance on the matter, since none wants to be seen to favour the “closed list”. Many are publicly insisting that they want the open system, and that it is their rivals who want the less transparent model where leaders rather than the electorate select candidates.

Hasan al-Yasiri belongs to the State of Law bloc, which in turn is part of the broader, Shia-led Iraqi United Alliance. He says the alliance supports open lists, and so do the Kurdish parties, in contrast to the main Sunni bloc, Iraqiyah, which he says wants the closed system.

“The Iraqi United Alliance supports the open list, and we regard a return to the closed list as a red line that must not be passed,” he said.

Iraqiyah politician Zeyad al-Therb, however, flatly denies that his group wants the less transparent system. Although some parliamentary party chiefs want that system, Therb is certain the law will be rewritten because the various parties realise how unpopular the closed system is.

Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of parliament, is less optimistic. He says the open-list system does not even get a mention in the text of the bill as it currently stands.