Several political blocs have expressed dissatisfaction with Iraq’s new election law, criticizing various amendments and provoking fears that it could yet be rejected by the Presidency Council, delaying the country’s national elections scheduled for January.

Although external pressures forced a compromise on the Kirkuk question and pushed the bill through parliament, ongoing criticism has led some to suggest that the Presidency Council may now veto the law and send it back to parliament for reworking.

At the heart of the dispute are the status of ‘compensatory’ seats and the plight of Iraqi voters abroad.

During the 2005 election there were 45 compensatory seats, allocated to political parties which did not win parliamentary seats in their electoral districts but secured a large enough percentage of votes nationwide to warrant seats in parliament.

Now, however, the number and concept of these compensatory seats has been altered, threatening the status of smaller political parties.

In the new law the allocated compensatory seats now stands at only five percent of total parliamentary seats, equal to 16 out of the total 323 seats. Out of these 16, eight have been allocated as quota seats for minorities, which means that the actual number of compensatory seats only stands at eight. Furthermore, the votes of refugees abroad will go into the compensatory seats pot, further diluting the value of compensatory seats.

The result is that smaller political parties who see the compensatory system as their only chance of securing parliamentary seats now believe that the odds are stacked against them.

At the same time some political figures have criticized the allocation of such a small number of seats for Iraqi refugees living abroad, numbering as many as two million.

The Sunni deputy president, Tariq al-Hashimi, expressed his dissatisfaction with the “attempt to undermine” the votes of Iraqi refugees abroad, saying that “seats allocated to Iraqi refugees should reflect their real numbers.”

Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni parliamentarian, has now demanded the allocation of 30 seats to Iraqi refugees abroad, saying that the current allocation is a violation of the constitution which stipulates that all Iraqis are equal.

The election law has stipulated that the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) shall decide where and how voting will be conducted for refugees abroad.

Meanwhile, the rights of internally displaced people are also being threatened, say critics, by article four of the election law which states that “displaced persons should vote in the city where their ration card was issued.” A large number of displaced people have not transferred their ration cards to their new places of residence, effectively meaning that they will be unable to vote in the election.

Taha Daraa, an MP for the Iraqi United Coalition in Diyala province, has now called for the article to be examined by the federal constitutional court. “Approving the provision related to displaced persons was a tragic thing to happen and an unprecedented and dangerous violation of the constitution,” he said.

At the same time, minority groups have also criticized the new compensatory system saying that it does not grant them enough parliamentary seats. Of the eight seats for minorities, five have been allocated to Christians and one each for Yazidis, the Shabak the Sabian-Mandaeans.

But according to Ameen Farhan Hajjo, the head of the Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress, their one seat does not adequately reflect their population size. With a total population of about half a million people, Hajjo says that the Yazidis should have been granted five seats according to the new law stipulating one seat for every 100,000 people.

“The allocation of only one seat for Yazidis does not fulfil the Yazidi aspirations,” he told Niqash.

Smaller parties and election observers have also expressed opposition to the provision stipulating that surplus votes from winning lists shall be handed down to the next largest list, saying it discriminates against voter intentions.

The Iraqi communist party has called the provision “dangerous” saying it works against the democratic nature of elections. The party has called upon the presidency to contest this provision and to return the bill to parliament for further discussion.

The Tamouz Network, a group of election monitoring NGOs, has also issued a statement condemning this article, saying that it will lead to the manipulation of voter intentions by giving seats to parties they did not vote for.

According to the election law, the Presidency Council, represented by the president and his two deputies, now has a period of 10 days to examine the bill. While observers say that President Jalal Talabani is unlikely to reject the bill, one of his two deputies including al-Hashimi who has already expressed unease with its makeup, could well take this step and throw the country back into political turmoil.