Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq faces a growing risk that national elections scheduled for January may be delayed by a dispute over seat allocations, with Kurds threatening to boycott the vote and the Sunni Muslim vice-president vetoing part of the election laws.

Tariq al-Hashemi today sent the law, passed this month after weeks of bargaining, back to parliament to be changed, saying in a press conference aired on al-Arabiya that more seats must be reserved for the country’s largely Sunni expatriate population. The vote is due to be held by Jan. 21.

The three northern provinces under Kurdish control, the country’s most stable region, will boycott the vote unless changes that reduce their relative strength in the Baghdad parliament are revoked, the head of the Kurdish government’s foreign affairs department, Falah Mustafa Bakir, said in an interview in the region’s capital, Erbil, yesterday.

The dispute may delay a nationwide vote that’s seen by the U.S. as key to establishing a stable government in Baghdad that will make it easier to implement President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw American combat troops next year and all remaining forces by 2011. Legislation to govern the country’s oil industry and speed new investment in oilfields has also been delayed pending the election.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement posted on the cabinet Web site that he was surprised by the veto, which he described as a “serious threat, to the political process and democracy.” He called on lawmakers to meet urgently to confirm their decision to hold the vote on time.

Waiting for the Vote

“The Iraqi people are impatiently waiting to go to the polls,” al-Maliki said.

President Jalal Talabani told al-Arabiya that neither he, nor his other deputy, Adil Abdel al-Mahdi, were satisfied with the law and had endorsed it only because failure to hold the elections on time could result in a “constitutional vacuum.” They believed amendments could be made at a later stage.

Still, al-Hashemi exercised his constitutional right in vetoing the law, said Talabani, who is a Kurd.

The row over the election law stems from the failure to carry out a census that could form a basis for allocating parliament seats to be contested in the election, Bakir said. Instead, the election law, which increased the number of seats to 323 from 275 to reflect population growth, was based on food- ration lists.

Manipulated Lists

Bakir said those lists have been “manipulated” as part of an effort “to undermine Kurdish influence and stop Kurdish progress in the region.” The three northern provinces controlled by his administration were granted just three of the 48 new seats created under the law, while neighboring Nineveh province got 12 extra seats.

“Who is going to believe that in a city like Sulemaniyah, with a population of over 1 million, there’s been no increase,” Bakir said. “Was nobody born in these four years?”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Holland in Northern Iraq at Bholland1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 18, 2009 11:35 EST