BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Parliament voted yesterday to guarantee religious minorities seats on provincial councils to be selected next year, but drew ire from Iraqi Christians by setting aside fewer spots than a UN proposal had urged.
The measure, passed by 106 out of 150 lawmakers present, give six provincial council seats, out of a total of 440 nationwide, to Christians, Shabaks, Yazidis and others religious and ethnic groups who make up a small part of Iraq’s 28 million mainly Muslim population.
Some parliamentarians said the vote fell short of a UN recommendation to assign the minorities 12 seats in the elections, which are certain to reconfigure Iraqi politics when they take place in early 2009.
“It is a degrading decision for the unique minorities of this country. It does not serve public interest and we consider it a major insult for all minorities in Iraq,” said Yunadim Kanna, one of the few Christian members of Parliament.
Kanna said he believed Christians, estimated to number 750,000, should have received more seats than other, even smaller minorities, some of whom number in the thousands. Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, chided Parliament for failing to provide such safeguards when they passed the provincial election law in September.
The polls, which will elect council members in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces, are considered essential to healing the country’s political and religious feuds.
The polls could reshape Iraqi politics if Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the last such elections in 2005, come out in force. The vote will also be a battleground for competing Shiite Arab parties, especially in Iraq’s south.
The plight of Iraq’s Christians in particular has come to the fore recently as at least 1,500 Christian families fled the northern city of Mosul, where some Christians had been targeted for attack or intimidation.
