BAGHDAD, Nov 9: Iraq on Sunday timetabled long-awaited provincial elections for January 31 as an opinion poll showed religious parties apparently losing support.

The elections, seen by Washington as a key benchmark for achieving national reconciliation, will take place “in one day in Baghdad and the other provinces,” said Qazim al-Abudi, administrative director of the Iraq High Electoral Committee.

“The electoral campaign will start at the end of this month or at the beginning of next month and it will last for two months,” he said.

According to a survey published by an Iraqi NGO, the Al-Amal Association, only 22.7 per cent of 12,000 people interviewed in 11 provinces said they would vote for religious parties or blocs.

Voting for independent candidates is deemed a priority for 26.3 per cent of the surveyed people, while 23.7 per cent said they would elect democratic and secular blocs.

In the last provincial elections in December 2005, religiously-affiliated parties won all the seats in the councils, with the exception of the Kurdish region and Kirkuk.

Washington has long said the poll is critical to consolidating Iraq’s fledgling political process and reconciling its deeply divided ethnic groups following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled now executed leader Saddam Hussein.

The January ballot will be held in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces after the new law excluded Kirkuk and the three Kurdish provinces of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah.

Elections in the three Kurdish provinces will not be held until after March 2009 and the existing multi-communal council will continue to administer the province of Kirkuk.—AFP