Elections in Diala will not be fair, says head of provincial council

DIALA / IraqiNews.com: Head of the Diala provincial council Ibrahim Bajlan said on Friday that elections in the province will not be fair, noting that some parties and armed groups’ interference will affect the coming elections. “In the current stage, elections will not be fair in Diala and there are some parties which will interfere in the elections,” Bajlan told IraqiNews.com. On September 24, the Iraqi Parliament approved a long-delayed law to allow provincial elections to go ahead, but lawmakers scrapped a key clause that would have guaranteed seats for Christians and other minorities. Iraq’s Parliament has set a January 31 deadline for elections in 14 provinces, excluding the three Kurdish provinces and the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk. Leaders of Iraq’s minority’s communities claimed the law did not provide for their representation in the councils that would be formed after the vote. Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border. Its capital is Baaquba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. It covers an area of 17,685 square kilometers (6,828 sq mi). A large portion of the province is drained by the Diala River, a major tributary of the Tigris. Because of its proximity to two major sources of water, Diala’s main industry is agriculture, primarily dates grown in large Date Palm groves. It is also recognized as the orange capital of the Middle East. In January 2008 Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007. SH (S) 1