Dinar Reporter (IQDUSD)

[Panhead]

Iraq's parliament faces big challenges revisiting delayed laws, speaker says
Published: March 8, 2008


Big challenges are ahead of Iraq's parliament when it resumes work March 18 and revisits controversial measures including an oil and gas law and a bill to set up provincial elections, Iraq's parliament speaker said Saturday.

A measure aimed at regulating foreign investment in Iraq's underdeveloped oil sector, and distributing its revenues among the nation's Sunni and Shiite Arab communities and the large Kurdish minority, has been bogged down in parliament since February 2007.

The provincial elections law was approved by parliament last month but was rejected by Iraq's presidential council.

"The biggest challenge ahead of us is the provincial elections law," Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said at a news conference in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

In February, Iraq's parliament passed the provincial elections measure along with other two key pieces of legislation: one that allots US$48 billion (€30 billion) for 2008 spending and another that provides limited amnesty to detainees in Iraqi custody.

The three measures were bundled together for one vote to satisfy the demands of minority Kurds who feared they might be double-crossed on their stand that the budget allot 17 percent to their semiautonomous regional government in the north.

Later, Iraq's three-member presidential council approved the 2008 budget and the amnesty law but rejected the provincial elections measure and sent it back to parliament. The presidential council is composed of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi.

The provincial elections, which were initially scheduled for Oct. 1, would devolve power to some degree from the national government and have been seen as an important step in U.S.-backed national reconciliation efforts.

Abdul-Mahdi, a senior official in the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the country's largest Shiite party, rejected the measure and was supported by the Kurds.

The sticking point was control of the provincial governor's offices.

A provision in the measure allows the Iraqi prime minister to fire a provincial governor, but Abdul-Mahdi's bloc wants that power to rest with the provincial councils, or legislatures, where his party has a strong base of support around the country.

"We do need a serious stance to deal with the next challenge," al-Mashhadani said Saturday.

He urged an "ideal solution," which would be pass the law again as it is, and then follow it with another one that recommends amendments to its disputed provisions "in order not to agitate a political storm and avoid any political tensions."

"We are seeking ... a unified stance to go forward together in the right direction," said al-Mashhadani, a Sunni.

It took weeks of wrangling for the Iraqi parliament to pass the three measures the presidential council reviewed. Even then, al-Mashhadani had to break an 82-82 tie to get the deal through on the last day before the legislature took a five-week break.

The elections measure was only the second of 18 benchmarks set by the Bush administration to achieve national reconciliation.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...q-Politics.php