Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html
Iraq’s Executive Council ratified on Saturday a much-debated bill that gives Iraqi religious minorities fewer guaranteed seats on provincial councils than the United Nations mission in Iraq had recommended.
The Executive Council — President Jalal Talabani and the two vice presidents — agreed with Parliament that religious minorities, which include three-quarters of a million Christians, should be guaranteed just 6 of the 440 seats on the provincial councils, half what the United Nations had proposed.
An election for the councils is scheduled to be held next year. Some Christian leaders are threatening a boycott because they say the number of guaranteed seats will leave them underrepresented. Besides Christians, the country’s religious minorities include Yazidis, Sabeans and Shabaks.