Kurds want control of Kirkuk. Dispute threatens election law.

This is just one of several disputes that threatens the passage of an election law that is already past the date when it should have been passed. If the election is delayed this may also effect US withdrawal of troops. During the Hussein era he settled many non-Kurds in Kirkuk and many Kurds were driven out of the city. Now the Kurds think it is payback time but this has created conflict with other groups in the city. Depending upon which electoral lists are used in the election the Kurds or others would have a majority.

Many also want the elections to be for individual candidates rather than on lists and influential Shiite groups may even call for a boycott if there are not individual candidates rather than closed lists.

""Kurd leader demands control of oil-rich Kirkuk
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA (AP)

BAGHDAD - The president of Iraq's Kurdish region demanded Wednesday that oil-rich Kirkuk be incorporated into his autonomous area, as parliament prepared for a showdown on the contentious issue of which of the northern city's residents can vote in upcoming elections.

Massoud BarzaniMassoud Barzani's comments ratcheted up the pressure on the eve of a vote on the electoral law that will lay the groundwork for January's key parliamentary ballot. Lawmakers are split over amendments on which voting list will be used in Kirkuk - one favoring Kurds or one favoring Arabs.

The city has large populations of Arabs and ethnic Turkmens who resent the Kurds' aggressive efforts to take over the city. The Kurds see Kirkuk as historically theirs and describe it as their "Jerusalem."

.....Arabs favor a plan that would use the 2004 voter registry, likely meaning Arab voters would be much more represented than Kurds. The Kurds favor a proposal by the United Nations that would use voter records from 2009, but only for a four-year period till the Kirkuk issue can be further clarified.

The 2004 proposal being put forward Thursday does contain some concessions to the Kurds, said Omar al-Jibouri, a Sunni Arab lawmaker. It would allow an additional 50,000 Kurdish families - who've been approved by a special committee as being residents of Kirkuk pushed out by Saddam - to vote.

......If the proposal based on the 2004 list passes, Othman said Iraqi President Jalal TalabaniJalal Talabani - who's Kurdish - will veto it, a sign of the heavy pressure Talabani is under to align himself with his Kurdish brethren.

At least 138 of Iraq's 275 lawmakers must attend in order for the vote to go forward. A simple majority would pass the matter but it can then be vetoed by the president. Lawmakers would need 183 votes to override his veto, something that Othman said could trigger an even bigger fallout.

It has been during periods of political deadlock like these that Iraq becomes particularly vulnerable to renewed violence. In 2006, months of political wrangling over the country's first permanent post-invasion government allowed al-Qaida linked insurgent groups to provoke Shiite militias into a near-civil war that tore the country apart.

Associated Writer Yahya Barzanji in Irbil, Iraq contributed to this report."""