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Fri 26 Sep, 2008 12:28 pm
Iraq has pretty well crowded off the front pages lately, but there continues to be more good news than bad news there.
Quote:Another Iraq Benchmark
Legislators approve a crucial deal on provincial elections.
Friday, September 26, 2008; Page A22
WHILE WASHINGTON was seized with congressional negotiations over the Wall Street bailout, Iraq's parliament on Wednesday took another major step toward political stabilization. By a unanimous vote, the national legislature approved a plan for local elections in 14 of 18 provinces by early next year -- clearing the way for a new, more representative and more secular wave of politicians to take office. The legislation eliminates the party slate system that allowed religious authorities to dominate Iraq's previous elections, and it provides for women to hold 25 percent of seats. Most important, it will allow Sunni leaders who boycotted the 2005 provincial elections -- and who have since allied themselves with U.S. forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq -- to compete for political power in the provinces that were once the heartland of the insurgency. . . .
. . . . Democrat Barack Obama continues to argue that only the systematic withdrawal of U.S. combat units will force Iraqi leaders to compromise. Yet the empirical evidence of the past year suggests the opposite: that only the greater security produced and guaranteed by American troops allows a political environment in which legislative deals and free elections are feasible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503601.html
@Foxfyre,
Didn't we hear this before?
This controversial bill has some history:
Kurdish legislators had strongly opposed a provision establishing a provincial council in Kirkuk, made up of equal numbers of Kurdish, Arab and Turkmenian representatives.
After several failures, the parliament now accepted a UN-proposed compromise, allowing elections in the rest of the country to proceed, as former opponents of the plan said they were confident an agreement could be reached to carry out elections in Kirkuk. (Earlier this month, Iraqi lawmakers agreed to temporarily divide control of Kirkuk among the city's ethnic groups until a permanent governing plan is established.)
In July, Kurdish parliamentarians staged a walkout, delaying a vote on the proposed provincial election bill that they said was unconstitutional. The bill passed despite the boycott, but Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the two other members of the Iraqi Presidency Council later refused to sign it because it had been passed by an incomplete parliament. In February, Iraq's Presidency Council rejected an earlier draft elections law that detailed the relationship between Iraq's central and local governments, sending the legislation back to parliament. The draft law was part of a package of legislation, approved by the parliament earlier that month, that also included the 2008 budget and an amnesty bill allowing the release of roughly 5,000 prisoners.
Source: dpa, Spiegel-online, AP, AFP, GlobalSecurity.org backgrounder
@Walter Hinteler,
Isn't the Iraq War now called "The Progress War?" That's what we've been hearing from the initial invasion some six years ago. The first was "shock and awe." After killing over 100,000 innocent Iraqis, this progress is surely costing Iraqis too little still.
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
Iraq has pretty well crowded off the front pages lately, but there continues to be more good news than bad news there.
Quote: Iraq's parliament on Wednesday took another major step toward political stabilization. By a unanimous vote, the national legislature approved a plan for local elections in 14 of 18 provinces by early next year -- clearing the way for a new, more representative and more secular wave of politicians to take office. ... ... ...
Well, some minorities - usually on your focus, Foxfyre - protested against
reached Iraq benchmark:
Iraqui Christians protest at election law
Quote:Crowds of Iraqi Christians protested on Sunday against a newly approved provincial election law, saying the legislation failed to represent the interests of the minority community.
Protestors shouted slogans against Baghdad's Shiite-led government and against the law in the town of Al-Kosh near the restive northern city of Mosul, carrying Iraqi flags and banners that said "No! No! to dictatorship".
Last week, Iraq's parliament passed controversial legislation setting a January 31 deadline for elections in 14 provinces, excluding the three Kurdish provinces and the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
Leaders of Iraq's Christian community claim the law does not provide for their representation in the councils that would be formed after the vote.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged the election commission to ensure that the rights of minority communities are protected in the law.
"We are committed to guarantee a fair representation of all Iraqi components and defend their rights," he said in a statement issued by his office.
Iraq has around 400,000 Christians, a number that has shrunk in half since US-led forces invaded in 2003.
@Walter Hinteler,
This delay can be blamed on the "surge." It gave the minorities and everybody else the safe-haven to continue their disapproval of legislation; the urgency and the need to compromise has been removed, because American soldiers will try to limit the violence.
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