Iraq’s presidential council, composed of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and two vice presidents, including Sunni Arab Hashemi and one Shia, has demanded a greater say in the election for minorities and Iraqi expatriates.

However, the war-torn country’s Federal Supreme Court on Thursday threw out an attempted veto from Hashemi, ruling that election organisers, and not the law, governed how many seats be given to Iraqi nationals living abroad.

The vote, the second national poll since the US-led invasion of 2003 which ousted Saddam Hussein, is scheduled for mid-January but cannot go ahead until the law governing it receives presidential assent.

‘The date of the vote on the presidential veto of the electoral law is Saturday,’ parliament speaker Iyad Al Samarrai told reporters in Baghdad, demanding MPs turn up to ensure the vote ‘reflects the will of the people’.

The insistence on securing the relevant change led Hashemi to veto the legislation on Wednesday, leaving the planned election in doubt.