BAGHDAD: Iraq’s presidential council on Tuesday set March 6 as the date for nationwide parliamentary elections, a seven-week postponement likely to feed concerns about an increase in violence.
The date 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.
Iraq was able to set the election date only after Parliament approved a new law on balloting guidelines during an emergency session convened just before a midnight deadline Sunday.
Failure to pass the new law would have forced Iraqi authorities to revert to rules used in its last parliamentary election in Dec. 2005 — a move that would have likely thrown the political process into a tailspin.
The council’s March 6 election date is a week later than what election officials initially recommended, said Faraj Al-Haidari, the head of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission. “We needed more time to organize voting abroad and time to complete preparations for the elections in general,” Al-Haidari said.
The commission requested the Jan. 16 elections be postponed after the elections law was vetoed by Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi, who wanted changes in the distribution of seats in Iraq’s expanded 325-seat Parliament.
On Monday, the electoral commission recommended a 45-day delay in the elections that would have pushed it to the end of February.
But Al-Haidari said the council decided to delay the elections a bit longer because of a series of religious holidays that could interfere with the planning.
The US military plans to withdraw all but 50,000 of its roughly 120,000 troops from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010. But the delay could complicate the timetable on that withdrawal, which American commanders have said will begin 60 days after the election.
America’s top commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, has said the parliamentary elections will be the first nationwide vote run solely by Iraqis, and that any related violence will probably happen within the first 60 days after the vote.
