The final word on the timing of the election rests with parliament, which meets again on Saturday, but Faraj al-Haidari's comments are likely to put pressure on MPs to push the date back towards the constitutional deadline of January 31.

"We can no longer organise elections on January 16 -- that would have been difficult even if we had received the law today," Haidari told state television.

"Whether they retain the old electoral law, amend it or adopt an entirely new one is a matter for members of parliament but we are the ones who will have to implement their decisions according to the timetable," he said.

"We hope that MPs will resolve their dilemma but we are not going to sacrifice international norms and criteria -- we're obliged to respect the rules so that these elections are transparent."

The commission is supposed to receive the electoral law 90 days before polling day but persistent wrangling in parliament means that the legislation has yet to be put to a vote.

MPs are to meet again on Saturday for a new attempt to hold a vote after a compromise text was agreed, a senior lawmaker said.

"We reached a deal on the electoral law in the committee on laws, and deputies will vote on Saturday," committee chairman Baha al-Araji told AFP.

However, Kurdish MP Khaled Chwani was more cautious, saying there had been only a tentative deal and that the sticking point was still oil-rich Kirkuk province and how it will be treated in the election.

"There were four proposals (on Kirkuk) today and we managed to boil them down to a single text," Chwani said. "We will study them and give our answer on Saturday."

Another Kurdish MP, Mahmud Othman, said "up until now nothing has been agreed, but Saturday afternoon we hope to reach a deal and include it on the agenda."

MPs have been deadlocked over the status of Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed province the Kurds have long demanded be incorporated in their northern autonomous region, despite opposition from its Arab and Turkmen residents.

While Kurds favour using current voter registration lists and keeping Kirkuk as one constituency, Arabs and Turkmen want 2004 or 2005 records to be used, or for Kirkuk to be split into two constituencies.

Executed dictator Saddam Hussein pursued a policy of Arabisation in Kirkuk, by driving Kurds out and settling Arabs in their place. But since his overthrow in the US-led invasion of 2003, Kurds have returned in large numbers.

The proposed amendments to the electoral law would also address whether parties list candidates' names on ballot papers or use the current system under which voters see only party names.

Supporters of the closed system argue it pushes party programmes to the fore.

Critics say sitting MPs who support the closed list are in fact concerned they could lose their seats.

A closed list was used in parliamentary elections in January 2005, the first to take place after Saddam's overthrow. Provincial elections last January used the open system.

Passage of the electoral law has remained deadlock despite intense lobbying from the United Nations and the United States, as well as pressure from Iraqi religious leaders and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

earlier related report
Lots of success for Iraqi stamp auction
Reckoned to be Iraq's top expert on cement, Anis Amjad does the rounds of factories during the week but nothing can stop him conducting the stamp auction in old Baghdad every Saturday.

On that day the 56-year-old chemical engineer takes off his white coat and raises his auctioneer's gavel. The lots are knocked down in an old Ottoman building dating from 1908 which, nine years later, became the first British Post office and where a traditional red letter box still adorns the facade.

"I am head of the inspection department at the industry ministry and I supervise Iraq's cement works. But I have always declined foreign assignments so as not to miss this meeting," says the confirmed bachelor, who first ran the auction 12 years ago.

Interest is reviving fast at the Iraqi Philatelic and Numismatic Society, founded in 1951, which has only recently resumed meeting after three years of suspension because of a violent struggle between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni populations and a strong Al-Qaeda presence in the neighbourhood.

Official membership stands at more than 2,000, though only around 80 are active buyers and sellers.

Stamp prices are rising sharply, in particular any ones showing Saddam Hussein, the dictator overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2003.

"Before 2003, the country was closed in on itself and we were cut off from the international market. But now business is going well. American and British collectors snap up stamps with Saddam on them," says Kamal Kamel, 46, who runs a stall in the Bab al-Muazzam district where the society meets.

"Unlike us, they couldn't get enough of him -- they could not buy the stamps, because of the embargo," he said, referring to UN sanctions on trade with Iraq introduced after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"A series showing Saddam Hussein which was worth 200 dinars sells today for 5,000 dinars (4.3 dollars). My monthly revenues have passed from 200 to 1,500 dollars. Prices really have risen," Kamel said.

"Only Iraqis come into my shop but I have an intermediary with access to the Green Zone who sells a lot to American soldiers and diplomats," he added.

When you accuse them, some go silent
Sitting round a long table, 30 or so dealers and collectors examine the stamps, bank notes and coins which comprise the lots on offer that day.

Anis livens up the sale with auctioneer's patter but all the bids are below prices given in foreign catalogues.

Festooning walls of the room are photocopies of letters from the British Philatelic Association dating from 1917, along with many stamps from Iraq and other Arab countries.

Since Iraq's first stamp in 1917, the postal service has issued 1,824 series of stamps, including 24 from after the fall of Saddam.

Garo Manaskan, a 51-year-old Iraqi of Armenian origin who is an accountant and runs a well-known Baghdad restaurant, is selling several items from his collection of three million stamps.

"I started at the age of six. It is my passion -- when some cease to please me I sell them to buy others. As I am unmarried, I will leave my collection to the Armenian church," he says.

Next to him, Haqqi Abdel Karim, a 45-year-old coin enthusiast, is at the auction for the first time in three years since seeking exile in Syria to avoid intercommunal violence.

"Today things are better and I am thinking of coming back but the association should move. This is not a safe district," Karim said.

Members come from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds, but old animosities have prevented the election of a committee for the past six years.

"Two thirds of the people around this table made a lot of money by taking part in or even leading the looting of post offices which happened in the wake of the American invasion," confides Mohammed Dhia, an active member of the society.

"When you accuse them, some go silent and others promise to give them back without having any intention of doing so. Then there are those who try to convince you the stamps are better off in their hands than with philistines knowing nothing of philately," he added.

His point is illustrated by the society's location at al-Koshla ("clock" in Turkish) post office, in Seraglio Street in Bab al-Muazzam neighbourhood, where the stamp museum stood before 2003. The museum's collections were all stolen and sold... to stamp collectors.

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