Ross Colvin
04/29/2007

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Below is an excerpt from Reuters:

BAGHDAD, April 28 (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament chose a new election commission on Saturday in what U.S. officials called a significant step towards holding provincial elections, one of the political benchmarks Washington has set for Baghdad.

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In the four predominantly Sunni provinces of Diyala, Salahaddin, Nineveh and Anbar "you have provincial councils that are not representative of the population," said a U.S. State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It is hard to know how much it contributes to violence, but it is a component in dissatisfaction among the Sunni minority. If a date for elections was set in a reasonable timeframe it would have a positive impact on the street," he said in Baghdad. Refugee advocacy groups and election experts have said the poll could be complicated by the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people by sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and Sunnis.

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The United Nations's chief of electoral assistance in Iraq, Sandra Mitchell, said in order to hold elections this year parliament would have to pass an election law by May, as it would take about six months to organise polls.

The U.S. official said there was some "fudge room" on that date and suggested Washington would be happy if they took place early in 2008 "as long as something is moving forward".

"We are planning to present a proposal to parliament on this law in the next month," said Saleem al-Jibouri, the spokesman for the Sunni Accordance Front who sits on parliament's legal committee. "I expect after that elections will be held before the end of the year."

There is likely to be heated debate in parliament on the date for the elections, what electoral system is to be used, the ongoing dispute over provincial boundaries, and how to deal with some 2 million internally displaced people.

The voter registry for the 2005 election was based on Iraq's ration card system -- a relic of U.N. sanctions. People voted where they had registered for their cards.

The Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International warned they would likely be disenfranchised because many had not been allowed to transfer their cards to the new areas in which they lived.

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