Iraq on Sunday timetabled long-awaited provincial elections for January 31 as a survey showed religious parties apparently losing support. The elections, which Washington sees as key for achieving national reconciliation, will take place "in one day in Baghdad and the other provinces," Qazim al-Abudi, administrative director of the Iraq High Electoral Committee, told AFP."The electoral campaign will start at the end of this month or at the beginning of next month and it will last for two months," he said.
In a survey by Al-Amal Association, an Iraqi non-governmental association, only 22.7 percent of 12,000 people polled in 11 provinces said they would vote for religious parties. Voting for independent candidates was deemed a priority by 26.3 percent of the 11,000 Iraqis surveyed, while 23.7 percent said they would select democratic and secular blocks.
In the last provincial elections, in December 2005 , religiously affiliated parties won all the seats in the councils, with the exception of the Kurdish region and Kirkuk.
Washington has long said the poll was critical to consolidating Iraq's fledgling political process and reconciling its deeply divided ethnic groups following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled now executed President Saddam Hussein. First planned for October 1, the polls were postponed when the national Parliament struggled to pass an election law due to concerns over the disputed oil-rich Kirkuk Province.
The January ballot will be held in only 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces after the new law excluded Kirkuk and the three Kurdish provinces of Irbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniyya. Elections in the three Kurdish provinces will not be held until after March 2009 and the existing multi-communal council will continue to administer the province of Kirkuk.