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Iraq sets March 6 for poll after political wrangling
Waleed Ibrahim
BAGHDAD
Tue Dec 8, 2009 9:37am EST
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq on Tuesday set March 6 as its election date after a protracted political battle between Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers had delayed a poll seen as a critical step for the country's nascent democracy.
World
The new date was announced just hours after a series of car bombs ripped through Baghdad, killing 112 people and wounding 425, a brutal reminder of the threat still posed by the Sunni Islamist insurgency 6-1/2 years after the U.S. invasion.
A decision on the date for the election most likely allows U.S. forces to stick to their timetable of ending combat operations in Iraq next August ahead of a full withdrawal by 2012.
The presidency council agreed to the date with electoral authorities, Naseer al-Ani, chief of staff for President Jalal Talabani, told reporters.
March 6 comes after a constitutional deadline for the poll, but still 10 days before Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's mandate expires, thus avoiding a political vacuum that could have undermined Iraq's fledgling steps toward democratic rule.
The ballot was initially expected in mid-January, but Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim, threw vote preparations into disarray on November 18 when he vetoed parliament's election law. He argued it did not provide enough representation for refugees, many of whom are Sunni.
Hashemi had then threatened to veto a revised law that did not address his concerns and instead allocated more seats to Kurds. Lawmakers, cajoled by U.S. and U.N. officials, late on Sunday agreed to a last-minute compromise on the distribution of seats, and Hashemi dropped his objections.
The political wrangling over the election law revealed how deep sectarian divides still run in Iraq.
Many Sunnis, a minority that controlled Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein, have at times struggled to accept the dominance of the country's Shi'ite majority since Saddam's overthrow.
That has fed a Sunni Islamist insurgency, believed to be behind Tuesday's attacks, which were the deadliest bombings in Iraq in more than a month.
"After consultation, we agree that the best time to conduct the election is March 6, taking into consideration the religious ceremonies," Faraj al-Haidari, head of the independent electoral commission, told reporters.
"All agree that this is the best date," said Haidari.
(Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley, editing by Michael Christie and Noah Barkin)
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