Ninewa council votes for postponing local elections

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: The Ninewa provincial council on Thursday decided with a majority of 19 to seven votes to postpone local elections in the province as proposed by the Kurdistan Alliance (KA) bloc in the council. “The extraordinary session held by the Ninewa provincial council on Thursday resulted in voting in favor of a motion to postpone the elections with a majority of 19 votes, all of them are KA members, against seven votes – two from the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and five from the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC),” a media source from the council told IraqiNews.com. “The proposal was tabled by the KA due to the presence of displaced persons in nearby provinces like Duhuk and Arbil, who would not be able to cast their votes properly,” the source said. He revealed that deliberations in the extraordinary session began with KA member Mahdi al-Harki reading out the postponement proposal on the grounds that there are about 45,000 displaced persons from Ninewa who are currently residing in Duhuk and Arbil. “Some of them have been displaced since 1973 and were never listed on the electorate registries in the province and hence they cannot vote in the upcoming elections,” the source explained. AmR (P) 1