Iraqi lawmakers fail to vote on controversial election bill

The Iraqi lawmakers have again failed to reach a compromise over the elections law which would govern the country's national polls next January.

The parliament decided to reconvene on Sunday to consider the law.

"The parliament could not vote on the proposed elections law because there was no consensus among the blocs over accepted wording for the disputed articles in law," the state-run channel of Iraqia quoted Dhafir al-Ani, a Sunni lawmaker as saying.

The Iraqi lawmakers have been struggling over a compromise on the crucial law which was stumbled by the stubborn stances of the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkmen over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.

Iraqi and U.S. authorities fear that the deadlock over Kirkuk is likely to delay the national elections and hamper the political process in the war-torn country.

Arabs and Turkmen favor a plan that the electoral law should use the 2004 voter registry as they accuse the Kurds of carrying out demographic change in Kirkuk after 2003, while the Kurds refuse the plan accusing Saddam Hussein's regime of displacing thousands of Kurds who were replaced with Arabs to make Kirkuk a predominantly Arab province.

Iraqi and U.S. authorities fear that the deadlock over Kirkuk is likely to delay the national elections and hamper the political process in the war-torn country.

Source:Xinhua