IRAQI ELECTION LAW UPDATE: NOVEMBER 7, 2009

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 002958 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2019 TAGS: KDEM PGOV IZ SUBJECT: IRAQI ELECTION LAW UPDATE: NOVEMBER 7, 2009 REF: BAGHDAD 2951 Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Gary A. Grappo for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Council of Representatives (COR) achieved quorum for a vote on an election law, but after strenuous objections from the Sunni Arabs, decided to postpone the vote until the following day at 9:30 a.m. The proposal to be tabled is an undated version of the Abd al-Mahdi proposal, vice the Samarra'i proposal of November 5. The switch was made after rank-and-file Kurdish MPs rejected the November 5 proposal for voting rules in Kirkuk -- despite clear assurances to the Ambassador by KRG Barzani, KRG PM Barham Salih, President Talabani, and FM Zebari that the Kurdish delegation had been instructed to accept the November 5 proposal. The new Mahdi proposal, which has no provisions for Sunni Arab and Turkoman compensatory seats, was embraced by the Kurds and Shia Arabs, but drew predictable objections from the Sunnis. POL M/C and poloffs engaged directly with the Speaker and lawmakers at the COR to push events toward a vote that day, as planned, but the Sunnis were ultimately able to prevail on ISCI to buy them more time to review the new proposal. UNAMI SRSG Melkert told POL M/C he believed the sense of urgency was sharpening among Iraq's political leaders. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Kurdish bloc leaders convened at 10:00 a.m. November 7 to review the November 5 proposal (Ref A). The Ambassador confirmed in the morning with KRG President Barzani, KRG PM Barham Salih, and President Talabani that the Kurds would support the November 5 proposal and vote it into law that night. FM Zebari told the Ambassador around noon that he had conveyed to the bloc a joint message from Barzani and Talabani that the delegation should support the November 5 proposal and vote it into law that day. Beginning at 9:00 a.m. and lasting throughout the day's events, poloffs reached out to all party blocs to promote COR follow-through on the November 5 accord and a vote. While resistance was strongest from the Kurds, Arab and Turkoman also offered objections, whose volume dramatically increased once word came of a new Abd al-Mahdi proposal. At one point, poloff viewed a Kirkuk Arab MP Omar al-Jabourri storming out of a session to awaiting journalists and news cameras shouting, "Where is the democracy; where is the justice?" ¶3. (C) In a meeting with the Kurdish bloc leaders, POL M/C underscored that the United States expected the Kurds to appear for the floor vote and keep to their promise to vote in favor of the November 5 compromise. There followed a succession of objections, most strongly to compensatory seats and to "surrendering Kirkuk to the Arabs," followed by repeated references to historic Arab abuses visited upon the Kurdish people. POL M/C reminded the Kurd leaders that the United States was not a stranger to Arab-Kurd history and would not ask them to vote in favor of a proposal not in their interests. The November 5 accord, as they themselves had accepted just two days ago, respected their interest and would advance the interest of greater Iraq. Moreover, POL M/C continued, the Kurds would be keeping a promise made to us to respect that compromise. Failure to support the election law passage would leave Washington at a lost to understand Kurdish intentions, he stressed. Nevertheless, the rank-and-file Kurdish MPs continued to resist the idea of voting for a proposal that provided compensatory seats for Arabs and Turkomans. Friad Rwanduzi (PUK bloc leader) and QArabs and Turkomans. Friad Rwanduzi (PUK bloc leader) and Khalid Schwamy (PUK and Legal Committee member) then met with Speaker Samarra'i and presented to him a new proposal, the key element of which was the removal of compensatory seats. ¶4. (C) The new Mahdi proposal called for elections in Kirkuk using the 2009 voter registration list and no compensatory seats. The proposal also said that in any province where the voter registration list is found to have a five percent or higher increase in population or errors in voter names, then a committee would be established (by province) to review the voter registration list. Under this proposal, the review committees would be composed of COR members from that province as well as representatives of the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of the Interior, the Independent High Electoral Commission, and UNAMI. For Kirkuk, the review committee would be created automatically upon evidence of the five percent increase. For other provinces, if a five percent increase is found, then a special review committee may only be created after a majority vote in the COR approves it. If a review committee determines that a province's voter list contained significant errors or malfeasance, then there would be a provision to reallocate seats to the province that should have been awarded the seat(s). The final provision of the proposal states that no outcome of the elections will be used as a BAGHDAD 00002958 002 OF 002 basis for future electoral events or as a precedent for any political or administrative situation. ¶5. (C) In a subsequent late afternoon session, COR Speaker Samarra'i told POL M/C that although he had called for a floor vote at 5:30 p.m., he was not hopeful of agreement. "No sooner do I get them to accept one compromise than someone offers to add or delete language and we are back to where we started," he exclaimed in frustration. POL M/C urged the Speaker to table the November 5 proposal as it represented the only text accepted at any one point in time by all parties. Samarra'i explained how that proposal had been overtaken by the Mahdi proposal and advanced by the Kurd and Shi'a alliances. However, as he was explaining, there began the unfolding of the COR's tragic political opera as one party bloc and/or party after another -- Kurd, Arab/Turkoman, Iraqi National Alliance and Tawafuq -- barged into the Speaker's office and interrupted the conversation to proclaim its objections to the Abd al Mahdi draft accepted by all but the Arab/Turkoman less than two hours before. As the Speaker and POL M/C offered counterproposals, the parties threatened a walkout of the approaching session. The Speaker implored the party leaders to seek compromise, but none appeared willing to surrender familiar demands. ¶6. (C) Determined to try for a vote that day, Samarra'i sounded the bell to summon MPs for floor action. Members drifted in but the COR remained some 25-30 MPs short of quorum, as a large Sunni Arab caucus met to plot next steps, including whether to boycott the session. POL M/C urged IIP chief Omar Tikriti and his Sunni colleagues to attend the session, but Tikriti hesitated, reasoning that the Sunnis had not been adequately consulted and were unsure of what might result. Although he said the Sunnis would attend, as the COR session awaited the conclusion of their caucus, word came out that the Sunnis were balking out of concern for the Kirkuk Arab and Turkoman. As the Sunni Arabs began to stream out of the caucus room toward the COR exit, POL M/C and poloffs confronted a number of them and urged them to reconsider. Saleh al-Mutlaq told POL M/C that Mahdi proposal was unfair to the Arabs and Turkoman of Kirkuk and could not be accepted. He proposed a reversion to the idea of separate lists -- i.e., the original Mahdi proposal of last week -- to which POL M/C responded that the 2004 and 2005 lists did not exist and it would be futile to try to reconstruct them. "Then we must surrender to the Kurdish invasion of Kirkuk?" he rhetorically offered and left the COR, other MPs in train. ¶7. (C) Adeeb told poloff that Sunni Arabs and Turkomans strongly resisted the idea of any proposal that stripped away provisions for compensatory seats, but they were willing to keep talking. At roughly 3:30 p.m., Samarra'i called for a two-hour recess in the COR in order to give party bloc leaders more time to negotiate the terms of the proposal. By 6:30 p.m., agreement had not yet been reached. Samarra'i asked approximately 115 MPs to wait half an hour to allow Tawafuq leaders time to convince the holdout MPs -- including Iraqi Front for National Dialogue MPs Mohammed al-Tamim and Omar al-Jabouri and some Tawafuq MPs -- to participate in a vote on the new Mahdi proposal. (Note: Ayad Allawi, leader of the IFND's new coalition partner, was nowhere to be seen. End Note.) On hearing, however, that quorum had been achieved and that a vote could conceivably take place without Qachieved and that a vote could conceivably take place without them, the Sunnis had hastily returned to the COR. The 177 MPs then engaged in a heated debate over the issue of the day and the four-week ordeal, Kirkuk, with the Sunnis insisting that a vote should not take place. However, despite a sense of the majority of the COR -- and firm intervention by POL M/C and poloffs -- that a vote take place that night, the Sunni Arabs ultimately persuaded ISCI to join them in calling for the COR to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. the following day (November 8) in order to give Sunni MPs more time to review the proposal. HILL