Parliament backs down from merging local elections with legislative elections due to fears of wideni

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[size=52]Parliament backs down from merging local elections with legislative elections due to fears of widening protests[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad / Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]The protesters and independent representatives succeeded in preventing the political forces from proceeding with the legislation of the election law that imposes the "St. Lego" system. And the House of Representatives announced yesterday, after holding its session for several hours, to postpone discussing the law until next week.[/size]
[size=45]This postponement came after hundreds of protesters gathered outside the green walls, condemning the new law.[/size]
[size=45]According to the parliament's statement, it seems that there was an agreement to separate the local elections from the legislative, which was in the previous version of the law, which raised major objections.[/size]
[size=45]And the media department of the House of Representatives stated that the latter: “Voted to postpone the report and discussion of the proposed law for the third amendment to the Provincial and District Councils Elections Law No. (12) of 2018 until next Saturday’s session.”[/size]
[size=45]A week ago, the draft law submitted by 10 deputies from the coordination framework had requested merging the provincial council elections with legislative elections and canceling the multiple constituency law that was enacted in 2020.[/size]
[size=45]The parliament session postponed from last week regarding amending the election law was delayed by 3 hours on the scheduled date in the parliament's agenda.[/size]
[size=45]The deputies confirmed the holding of multiple dialogues before the session in an attempt to bridge the points of view and make amendments in the last hours before passing the law.[/size]
[size=45]Outside Parliament, hundreds were demonstrating against the adoption of the St Lego system, after a day of mobilizing against the law.[/size]
[size=45]On the eve of the start of the protests, information was circulated about the unofficial participation of the Sadrist movement, after positions opposing the new law issued by the leaders of the movement.[/size]
[size=45]The coordination framework, which is trying to push through mediation towards persuading the leader of the movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, to accept the law, fears that the situation will get out of control and the protests will expand.[/size]
[size=45]The former deputy and Sadrist leader, Hakim al-Zamili, announced his rejection of the law in the movement's first political position since the Green Zone clashes last August, in which al-Sadr's supporters were involved with armed parties inside.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Zamili shared a previous video of the representative of the reference, Abdul-Mahdi Al-Karbalai, in which he rejects the closed circle. The deputy said on his Facebook page: "No to the closed list, not to the single district."[/size]
[size=45]Al-Sadr's fans had widely shared the video clip of Karbalai on social media during the last two days, which dates back to 2019.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Karbalai says in the video clip that “the opinion of the religious authority is neither for the closed list nor for a single electoral district,” adding that “the closed list closes the way for voters to choose who will represent them in Parliament.”[/size]
[size=45]Last Saturday, the Central Committee of the uprising provinces announced its intention to stage demonstrations against attempts to pass the St. Lego electoral law in front of Parliament today, Monday (yesterday).[/size]
[size=45]In a statement, the committee considered that the authority "disrupts" all the suffering of the Iraqis, and ignores the crisis of high prices and the dollar, "to move towards reading the draft provincial elections law in the corridors of Parliament."[/size]
[size=45]And the committee stated that "this draft, which the parties of the authority intend to pass to the parliamentary elections in the cover of the provincial councils, was rejected by the majority of the people and the reference previously."[/size]
[size=45]In addition, a member of the Legal Committee in Parliament, Aref Al-Hamami, said in an interview with (Al-Mada) that: “Dialogues took place before the session was held regarding the development of a final version of the law.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Hamami denied, minutes before announcing the start of the session, that there had been amendments to the law, indicating that “the dialogues aimed at persuading the objectors.”[/size]
[size=45]Prior to that, the Regions Committee in Parliament, which is a legal support committee in amending the election law, made recommendations regarding the laws of parliamentary elections and provincial elections.[/size]
[size=45]The head of the committee, Khaled Hassan Salih al-Samarrai, said, “The provincial elections law did not come from the government, but it came from deputies who proposed the draft law to the council president and read the first reading, after which meetings were held on it by the Legal Committee as a (main) committee, and the Regions and Provinces Committee as a committee.” (Secondary)".[/size]
[size=45]Al-Samarrai added, in a statement to the official agency, that “a meeting was held with the sub-committee (regions and governorates), which decided to separate the laws of the elections for the House of Representatives and the provincial councils, since every law has a specificity and every law referred to in a paragraph in the constitution.”[/size]
[size=45]And he continued: As for the second paragraph, the committee decided that the provincial council elections be (multiple constituencies), in order to ensure the representation of all regions in the province (the provincial council).[/size]
[size=45]And he continued: “As for the House of Representatives, it is possible to go to (one constituency), which was proposed by the deputies and submitted to the Presidency of the Council, pending the opinion of the political blocs and according to their consensus,” pointing out that “the political blocs will direct their deputies to rely on one law according to The opinion of the bloc, not the opinion of its deputies.[/size]
[size=45]The media department of the House of Representatives had announced the postponement of the parliament session scheduled for 11 am, by half an hour, while it was not held until after two o'clock in the afternoon.[/size]
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