Iraq's legislature takes shape even before vote

A militiaman loyal to radical Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr takes position as a car burns in the southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday after three British civilian vehicles were hit by a roadside bomb, causing no casualties. PHOTO: AFP

"The makeup and list of people on the national council has largely been decided already," said a senior delegate on the preparatory committee for the three-day conference, which started Sunday.

"Leaving it to a truly open vote may bring in people that would threaten the strategic plan that has already been charted for Iraq."

Nineteen of the 100 seats on the council have already been handed to members of the defunct governing council, which was created by the US-led occupation shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 and included many figures that fought the regime from exile.

According to conference rules, delegates of different leanings -- Islamists, secular, Kurdish, Arab or otherwise -- are supposed to draw up lists for the remaining 81 seats and submit them to an open vote.

The one gaining a 51-percent majority would be the winning list.

"It is really straightforward and judges with known integrity will oversee the whole process," assured Fuad Maasum, head of the conference's preparatory committee.

All lists should more or less conform to previous agreements dating back to 1991 among the country's then exiled opposition parties, as the various ethnic and religious groups plotted to overthrow Saddam's Sunni Muslim dominated regime, a Sunni party official said.

"For example Shias must get 52 percent of all 100 seats or Islamists get 33 percent and so on and so forth" said Dia al-Shukurji of the Dawa party, the main grouping of the majority Shias.

Another official close to the process said the 81 seats would be divided as follows: 21 party members, 21 provincial leaders, 11 minorities, 10 tribal figures, 10 civil society organisations and eight independents.

Women have been already granted 25 percent of all council seats.

Many independents attending the conference have already cried foul and demanded that a direct vote of candidates takes place.

"One of our main disagreements with the preparatory committee is that political parties should not dominate the process and that the average Iraqi must feel that this is truly an opportunity for him or her to enter political life," said former oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum.