By Rod Nordland & Riyadh Mohammed
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.
"Parliament could amend this law in a day," Mr. Hashemi said. "We have no time to lose." But with Kurdish leaders also objecting to provisions of the law, a much more protracted debate in Parliament is likely. Kurdish leaders also want a greater share of parliamentary seats and on Tuesday had threatened to boycott the elections unless their demand was met.
The United States has consistently pushed national elections both as an important step toward reconciling still yawning Iraqi political divisions and as a prerequisite for withdrawing American troops. A postponement could affect the schedule, since American military officials had said they would begin a major drawdown a month or two after elections originally set for Jan. 18.
On Wednesday, however, the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, played down the threat, saying that it was "unclear" what the veto meant but that the drawdown could proceed as scheduled despite delays in the election date.
"I think we are set up and are flexible enough between now and the first of May, frankly," General Odierno said at a news conference that was apparently originally convened to praise Iraq's progress toward elections. "So I feel very confident that we don't need to make any decisions until the late spring."
The United States has about 120,000 troops in Iraq, a number that President Obama has pledged to reduce to 50,000 by next August, a major logistical undertaking.
Iraq's Presidency Council is made up of both of Iraq's vice presidents, one a Sunni, the other a Shiite, and the president, who is a Kurd. Under Iraq's Constitution, all three must approve any law passed by Parliament. Mr. Talabani said he was unhappy with the election law, too, but was ready to sign it to avoid further delays. Mr. Hashemi, the Sunni vice president, said he objected to a clause giving only 5 percent of the seats in Parliament to minorities and Iraqi refugees abroad. Iraq has a population of at least 25 million, of whom 2 million - 8 percent - have fled abroad, according to United Nations figures.
Ibrahaim al-Sumydaie, a political analyst here, said he believed that Mr. Hashemi's veto was motivated at least in part by political ambitions; he has been expected to announce that he will join an electoral coalition with two politicians who have large constituencies among Iraqis who live abroad. Baha al-Araji, head of Parliament's legal committee, suggested that Mr. Hashemi was backing a Baathist agenda, since backers of Saddam Hussein's government oppose the elections.
"That's absolutely not true," said a spokesman for Mr. Hashemi, Shakir Kitab. Mr. Kitab called the vice president's motivations to include in the vote more of the Iraqis who fled to live abroad "humanitarian and patriotic."
Hamdiya al-Husseini, the head of Iraq's Independent Election Commission, said in a telephone interview that the elections would have to be delayed at least one day for every day it took to pass the election law, which has been postponed 11 times since the election commission's original deadline of Oct. 15.
Publicly, American officials expressed concern rather than alarm. "We're disappointed about the developments today concerning the election law," said Philip Frayne, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Baghdad. "We really hope a quick resolution can be found so the elections can proceed in January."
Mr. Hashemi insisted that Parliament could quickly amend the law, and he said that election officials had assured him they could still prepare for the vote in time.
However, Mrs. Husseini denied that Mr. Hashemi had been given such assurances. "We now have only 60 days, and according to the Constitution we must have an election law approved by the presidency within 60 days of the election," she said.
Iraqi officials suggested that the veto would not survive a constitutional challenge. "This veto is absolutely illegal and unconstitutional," said Tariq Harb, a prominent Iraqi constitutional lawyer. Mr. Maliki, in a strongly worded statement issued by his office, called the veto "a dangerous challenge to the political and democratic system." He added that the veto "was not based on a solid constitutional foundation and did not pay any attention to the national good."
Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to the prime minister, said Mr. Hashemi's veto was unconstitutional because all decisions by the Presidency Council have to be unanimous. He expressed hope that the vice president would reverse his veto to avoid a challenge in Iraq's highest court. Mr. Maliki cannot override the veto under Iraq's Constitution, but it could be appealed to the court, or possibly to Parliament. It is unclear how independent Iraq's judiciary is.
Mr. Maliki called for the electoral commission to continue its preparations for elections on Jan. 18. Mrs. Husseini, however, said that without an election law, the commission had to suspend preparations for the vote, since it would not even be able to prepare ballots until it knew how many seats there would be.
