Iraqi lawmakers reached agreement on Sunday on a new version of a stalled electoral law, paving the way for polls early next year, the deputy speaker of parliament Khalid al-Attiya told AFP. "An agreement has been reached and MPs will vote on the text of the law shortly," Attiya said before an emergency session to put it to the vote.
Approval of a new draft of the law side-steps a veto that Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi had threatened, and comes late in the evening after a marathon emergency session of parliament. Hashemi had torpedoed a previous version of the law last month, leading to further negotiations and delaying already late elections.
According to Attiya, the law will expand parliament from 275 seats to 325, 310 of which will be allotted to Iraq's 18 provinces, with the remainder reserved for religious minorities and blocs that garnered national support but did not win seats. It is a revised version of the first draft of the election law, with three additional seats for provinces in northern Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan, and one fewer reserved seat.
Kurdish parties expressed concerns that their seat allocations had not risen above the 2005 figures, while predominantly Sunni and Shia provinces had seen increases.