Saturday, April 21, 2007

Elections this year? Dream on . . .

The latest IEAT situation report has just come through. It suggests that local elections this year are still a possibility. See if you can make sense of it:

Consultations with parliamentarians and political groups about they type of electoral system and seat allocation formula for Governorate Council elections continue. There is no consensus amongst or within the political parties. Many want a district based system that would provide more accountability but which would require creating a new voter registry from scratch and that could take more than 12 months (the Public Distribution System is not deemed reliable below the Governorate level). Others are less particular about the type of electoral system and place greater weight on having Governorate elections this year which is still possible assuming the Public Distribution System is used to form the foundation of a voter’s registry with at least one public update and a single Governorate electoral unit is adopted. This choice however would likely exclude IDP’s and refugees and would require the same kind of single-governorate constituency that was used in 2005. Additional security measures and access issues caused by the April 12 bombing of parliament is making consultations more difficult given the long delays Iraqis now face gaining access to the Green Zone. Efforts to consult however continue subject to the security environment.

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