Parliament on holiday without January’s election law

This week, the national assembly adjourned even a couple of days before it was supposed to, and it is now not expected to reconvene until 8 September at the earliest, and possibly not until after Ramadan ends, on 19 September.

The list of unfinished business is as long as ever, but one item has a particular urgency, in theory at least: the adoption of the election system that will govern next year’s parliamentary elections, now scheduled for 16 January 2010. Whereas the previous election law of 2005 may still be used in case everything else should fail, there appears to be a strong desire, at least among the Iraqi public and the opposition parties, to do something about the electoral system in order that the elections results may better reflect public opinion.