Parliament Seeks Electoral Compromise

Initially, there had been prospects for more radical changes to the districting system, but what we are seeing now is a replay of disputes that are four years old, and that mainly relate to the preference of the Kurdish parties to use the population statistics from the ministry of planning rather than those of the ministry of trade. Using the planning ministry figures would increase the number of seats in parliament from 325 to 351, which the Shiite Islamists in parliament have opposed in particular.

Most likely a solution will eventually be found, and most likely it will involve some kind of opaque compromise in which statistics will be subordinated to the horse-trading efforts of Iraqi parliamentarians.

There is however one important caveat here that ultimately also relates to the evaluation of the current state of Maliki’s Iraq. What has failed to receive much attention is the fact that the law that is currently being considered by the Iraqi parliament is a brand new law proposal, rather than amendments to the existing law. As a “proposal” or muqtarah it has not been approved by the cabinet, and the most recent trend has been for the Iraqi supreme court to strike down this kind of proposals as incomplete legislative acts – something it has done in particular when new laws have been to the disadvantage of Maliki.

Moreover, since the current iteration of the election law from 2005 has also been deemed unconstitutional because of its seat distribution formula, there is a theoretical possibility that Iraq will be without a valid election law if anyone challenges the new law proposal. Maliki might do so if he wishes to delay the elections, although there would be a highly ironic twist to this in that Maliki’s allies are the ones who favour the seat distribution key of the 2005 law that has since been deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court and is the reason the law is being revised in the first place.