[8] The next day the Presidency Council of Iraq, consisting of President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite Arab, and Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, unanimously agreed to reject the bill because of the Kirkuk clause, and send it back to the Council of Representatives to reconsider.

[8] However, President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, and Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite Arab, have agreed they would reject the bill, and hence it would be sent back to the Council of Representatives to reconsider.

[9] Parliamentary summer recess started on 30 July 2008, but a special session was called for 3 August 2008 to find a solution to the Kirkuk issue.

[25] A draft bill based on this proposal was debated on 6 August and accepted by the Kurdistani Alliance but opposed by the Iraqi Turkmen Front, Iraqi Accord Front and Sadrist Movement who objected to the draft law's reference to the Kirkuk status referendum and insisted on delaying the entire elections until a solution was found.

[19][26] Under Article 50 of the draft Elections law, religious minorities such as Christians and Yazidis would be reserved a number of seats in the provincial assemblies.

Five thousand Christians demonstrated in Mosul against this change, saying it was a "marginalisation of their rights" and the head of the Assyrian Church of the East wrote to the Presidency Council asking them to veto the law.

[32] A minority clause was added on 3 November 2008, although it only provided for six special seats (three for Christians, one each for Yazidi, Mandean and Shabak) instead of twelve as recommended by the UN.

Given the large number of parties contesting the election, many of whom are expected to win one or two seats, female MPs raised concerns that the change in language has weakened this provision.

The elections are also expected to develop electoral competition within the Sunni Arab population between the pro-government Iraqi Accord Front and the new political groups formed out of the anti-al-Qaeda Awakening movement militias.

A leading member of the Awakening movement in Baghdad, Abu Azzam al-Tamimi, has formed the Iraqi Dignity Front to contest the elections.

[39] In Ninawa, the Sunni Arab-majority al-Hadba party—which is also backed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki[40]—complained of being targeted by Kurdish security forces.

Mithal al-Alusi, an Arab nationalist MP, complained that there were "many mistakes" by the Commission and Iranian diplomats had been allowed entry to polling stations.

ISCI blamed the election day vehicle ban, which meant voters often had to walk long distances to the polling centres.

[52][53] Provincial turnout source: IHEC [1] Note: While Youssef al-Haboubi got the most votes, he stood as independent candidate, thus only winning one seat for himself.

After the elections, the National Reform Trend said it has formed an agreement with the State of Law Coalition to ally in all provinces where they had won seats.

[56] The Accord Front member Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah was elected as governor while Taleb Mohammed Hassan from the Kurdistan Alliance was made chairman of the provincial council.

However Ibrahim Salman al-Miyali, an independent which ran as part of the State of Law Coalition left and joined ISCI's block because Maliki hadn't nominated him for any important position.

To create this alliance however, State of Law gave Hasan al-Zarqani and Kadum Majid Tuman, two Sadrists, the positions of governor and chairman.

In Dhi Qar State of Law aligned itself with the Sadrists and the National Reform Trend, creating a 24-seat majority in the 31-seat council, ISCI and Fadhila being left out.

Amaleddin Majeed Hameed Kadhem of the Dawa party became governor while Mohammed Hamid al-Musawi, a Sadrist was elected chairman.

The most complaints came from Ayad Allawi's al-Iraqiya list which claimed election fraud had taken place, mostly in Baghdad, Salahaddin and al-Anbar, a spokesman of the group: Ali Nesaif claimed that "Some boxes were stolen from polling centers in Salahaddin as well as Diyala," while Kadhim Turki another Allawi ally said that they were not satisfied with the final results—particularly in Baghdad and Basra."

Kinani also said their votes in Baghdad suspiciously dropped after the final results came in and he accused the Independent High Electoral Commission of making late changes to the law which benefited Maliki.

[65] Meanwhile, radical Arab Nationalist and Sunni MP Mithal al-Alusi claimed that hundreds of thousands of voters had been denied the right to vote.

In total election committee officials received 1,000 complaints of irregularities, including 20 serious allegations of fraud and that serious violations had been reported in Anbar, Diyala, Mosul, Muthanna and in Baghdad.