I’m keeping an eye out for it. According to a personal contact, the electoral system for provincial elections will be candidate-based. That leaves four likely suspects: STV, SNTV, bloc vote and FPP.

I suspect it will be either SNTV or bloc vote with sectarian quota. Reuters implies the institutions are designed to provide some level of minority representation:

New alliances will form, old ones will fall. Everything will change. It will redraw the political map of Iraq,” said a senior Shi’ite government official on condition of anonymity.

And:

Washington says the elections will foster national reconciliation, focusing on how they will boost the participation of minority Sunni Arabs in politics. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last local polls along with the Sadrists, are under-represented in areas where they are numerically dominant.

Bloc vote systems with gender and/or sectarian quotas are common in the Arab world. STV is rarely adopted, most likely due to numeracy and implementation concerns. SNTV (or some other limited scheme) would provide minority representation. It might also weaken parties at the local level, which one could consider a virtue in light of the strong sectarian parties that formed around Iraq’s federal closed list PR system.

The Iraqi cabinet apparently transmitted a draft electoral law to parliament yesterday. According to the Voice of America, this law was forthcoming when the Presidential Council on March 21 issued a Provincial Powers Law, which calls for elections by October 1. The body rejected a first draft on February 26.