Najaf clerics for open list system – VP

NAJAF / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdulmahdi on Friday said that senior clerics in the holy Shiite city of Najaf support observing the open list system in the forthcoming parliamentary elections scheduled to be held on January 16, 2010. “The clerics have underscored the importance of selecting efficient and fair figures in the voting,” Abdulmahdi said during a press conference on Friday after a meeting with top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf. Abdulmahdi, who belongs to the Iraqi National Coalition bloc, revealed that there were some figures from different groups in Iraq that want to join the bloc. “The names of those figures will be announced soon”. He did not give further details. Najaf lies 160 km southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Thursday (Oct. 8), an Iraqi lawmaker said the endorsement of the open list system in the coming parliamentary elections is an option preferable by the Kurdistan people as well as all Iraqi citizens. “The Kurdistan Islamic Union will vote in favor of the adoption of the open list system as the best option to communicate with the voters and revive their confidence in the political process and parliament,” Sami al-Atroushi, a member of the Iraqi parliament from the KIU bloc, told IraqiNews.com. “That particular system would enable the voters to pick their representatives based on standards of efficiency and integrity,” he added. The Iraqi parliament is debating amendments to the old election law endorsed in 2005 in a bid to address its flaws. The political blocs are now focusing on the adoption of the open list system instead of the closed one in the new law, set quotas for ethnic and religious minorities and overcome the problem of holding elections in the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad. AmR (S) 1