Veto of Iraq’s Election Law Could Force Vote Delay

Veto of Iraq’s Election Law Could Force Vote Delay
By Rod Nordland and Riyadh Mohammed | NY Times

Iraq was thrown into a fresh political crisis on Wednesday after a vice president vetoed a newly passed election law, delaying the vote, setting off fresh sectarian wrangling and possibly complicating plans to withdraw American troops.

In a move that caught American officials by surprise, one of two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashemi, said Wednesday that he had vetoed the new election law the night before; he had threatened a veto but the Americans did not expect him to follow through. Shortly afterward, the chief executive of Iraq’s United Nations-supported electoral commission said in an interview for the first time that the elections would have to be delayed.

The veto touched off a political explosion. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, condemned it as constitutionally questionable, while President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, warned that delaying the elections risked creating a constitutional vacuum during which the Iraqi government would lose its legitimacy. Read more.