BAGHDAD – Iraq's parliament passed a provincial elections bill on Tuesday, but a walkout by Kurdish lawmakers over the disputed oil city of Kirkuk could mean the law may not ratified by the presidency.

Kurds make up one of the three main groups in parliament, and their boycott of the vote over a dispute on how the elections law would deal with Kirkuk means the bill could be sent back to parliament.

The law is meant to pave the way for polls seen as vital to reconciling Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005, with its other communities.

'Today parliament passed the provincial elections law, in the absence of the Kurdish alliance, which walked out,' Hanin Qado, a lawmaker from the ruling Shi'ite alliance, told Reuters.

Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Khalid al-Attiya cast doubt on whether a law passed without the Kurds present would even be ratified by Iraq's presidency council – which must approve all laws – headed by President Jalal Talabani.

'We cannot have a vote with an absence of a whole faction. The vote is useless. It will be rejected by the representatives of this bloc and by the presidency council,' he said. If that happens, the bill gets sent back to parliament.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants the election to take place on Oct. 1, but the Electoral Commission says it will not have time to organise it by then, even with the law in place.

Faraj al-Haidari, head of the commission, told Reuters on Tuesday he could not start implementing the election law until it is approved by the presidency council.

He reiterated a warning that time was running out to hold polls this year, saying the earliest a vote could go ahead would be December, even if the law is passed by the end of July.

The law had been held up by a dispute over what to do about voting in multi-ethnic Kirkuk, where a dispute is simmering between Kurds who say the city should belong to the largely autonomous Kurdistan region and Arabs who want it to stay under central government authority.

Arabs and Turkmen believe Kurds have stacked the city with Kurds since the downfall of Saddam in 2003 to try to tip the demographic balance in their favour in any vote.

Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein's rule fear the vote will consolidate Kurdish power and they sought to postpone it, a proposal Kurdish politicians have rejected.

Parliament decided on an alternative: each ethnic or sectarian group gets a set allocation of seats and voting is between individual candidates from the groups. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen get 10 seats each. Minority Christians get two.

Washington has been urging a speedy provincial election, which it sees as a pillar of national reconciliation, but the poll is also proving a potential flashpoint for tensions.

Besides Kirkuk, analysts say the elections will be the battleground for a power struggle between majority Shi'ites in the oil-rich south.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Elizabeth Piper)