Iraq takes step to meeting US election benchmark

BAGHDAD, Apr 28 (Reuters) Iraq's parliament chose a new election commission today in what US officials called a significant step towards holding provincial elections, one of the political benchmarks Washington has set for Baghdad.

The nine commissioners were chosen in a closed session of parliament and their names initially withheld until security was organised for them. As with other members of the government and parliament they will likely be targets for assassination amid spiralling sectarian violence.

Washington is pressing parliament to set a date for polls before it breaks for summer recess at the end of June. It also wants a new law on sharing oil revenues and rolling back a ban on former members of Saddam Hussein's party holding office.

These are the key benchmarks that US officials are seeking to draw minority Sunni Arabs, who form the backbone of an unrelenting insurgency, more firmly into the political process.

While Sunni Arabs are represented in the government and in parliament, after taking part in national elections in December 2005, they boycotted provincial elections in January 2005.

In the four predominantly Sunni provinces of Diyala, Salahaddin, Nineveh and Anbar ''you have provincial councils that are not representative of the population,'' said a US State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

''It is hard to know how much it contributes to violence, but it is a component in dissatisfaction among the Sunni minority. If a date for elections was set in a reasonable timeframe it would have a positive impact on the street,'' he said in Baghdad.

Refugee advocacy groups and election experts have said the poll could be complicated by the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people by sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and Sunnis.

In Iraq there is a widely held belief that provincial elections are scheduled to take place in 2007, but United Nations and U.S.

officials say there is no law in place that says polls must take place this year.

Nevertheless Washington wants the elections to take place sooner rather than later. It is sending 30,000 more troops to Iraq for a campaign that is seen as a final chance to avert all -out civil war.

It wants Iraq's leaders to match the military buildup with political action to achieve a powersharing deals.

''Notionally the elections could happen this year. An optimal time to have them is while the surge is still in place because you would have an elevated troop level that could help with logistics and security,'' the US official said.

DISPLACED The United Nations's chief of electoral assistance in Iraq, Sandra Mitchell, said in order to hold elections this year parliament would have to pass an election law by May, as it would take about six months to organise polls.

The US official said there was some ''fudge room'' on that date and suggested Washington would be happy if they took place early in 2008 ''as long as something is moving forward''.

''We are planning to present a proposal to parliament on this law in the next month,'' said Saleem al-Jibouri, the spokesman for the Sunni Accordance Front who sits on parliament's legal committee. ''I expect after that elections will be held before the end of the year.'' There is likely to be heated debate in parliament on the date for the elections, what electoral system is to be used, the ongoing dispute over provincial boundaries, and how to deal with some 2 million internally displaced people.

The voter registry for the 2005 election was based on Iraq's ration card system -- a relic of UN sanctions. People voted where they had registered for their cards.

The Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International warned they would likely be disenfranchised because many had not been allowed to transfer their cards to the new areas in which they lived.

REUTERS JS ND2248