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Iraqi Parliament OKs Provincial Elections

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By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, The Associated Press

Published: February 14, 2008

BAGHDAD - Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections this year that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and usher in vast changes to Iraq's power structure.

The new law, which set the vote for Oct. 1, is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq's politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation.

Passage of benchmark reforms on healing Iraq's sectarian and ethnic rifts - and a reduction in violence - were the primary goals of the 30,000-strong U.S. troop increase that President Bush ordered early last year.

Violence has dropped significantly, but political progress languished until the logjam broke Wednesday by the narrowest of margins. Before the vote, the only significant measure to emerge from parliament had been a law that allows reinstatement to government jobs of some low-level members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party.

The outcome of the October elections is likely to reshape Iraq's political map.

Sunnis, who sat out 2005 elections, could claim a much stronger role in Iraqi political affairs. Already, Sunnis have provided critical help in security by joining the U.S.-led battles against al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents.

Among Iraq's majority Shiites, the election could be an important test of strength for rival factions fighting for control of oil-rich southern Iraq.

The Bush administration hailed the laws' passage.

"Many said that Iraq's communities couldn't relate to each other. Their grievances, their distrusts were so profound, they couldn't reach fundamental compromises. Well, we've never believed that that was a correct assessment," David Satterfield, senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told Associated Press Radio.

The provincial elections and powers law was bundled with the $48 billion 2008 budget and another measure that grants limited amnesty to prisoners held in Iraqi custody.

Kurds, based in a semiautonomous region in northern Iraq, insisted on the unusual legislative maneuver because they feared getting double-crossed on a deal that maintained their 17 percent share of the national budget.

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