July 23, 2008 | By ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Parliament approved legislation on Tuesday to govern provincial elections, but Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the session, vowing to force the measure to be rewritten, and probably delaying the balloting for months.

Provincial elections had been scheduled for October, but because of delays in reaching a compromise on the election law, they had already been set back to December. Now, the approved legislation is likely to be rejected by the Presidency Council, and with more work necessary to reach an agreement, it will be difficult to hold elections before next year, said Iraqi politicians from several parties.

“Those who wanted to accelerate the electoral process delayed it, whether intentionally or unintentionally,” said Khalid al-Attiya, the deputy speaker of Parliament and a Shiite.

“This vote has ruined the atmosphere of harmony which dominated Iraq in the recent period,” he said. “It paralyzed the elections. The chance of having an election during this year has been lost.”

Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurd, predicted that while there would be efforts to rewrite the law in the coming days, it would not be possible in the short time before Parliament’s summer recess. “This will delay elections; they will not be able to reach a compromise,” he said.

A delay would heighten political tensions among parties that boycotted the 2005 elections but decided to participate this year. Among them are several large political groups, including supporters of the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and members of the largely Sunni Awakening movement, who are underrepresented in several provinces.

The bill governing the elections was supported by Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and many Shiite members of Parliament. It was rejected by Kurdish lawmakers as well as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is allied with the Kurds in backing the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Most members of Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party, which is also part of the Shiite-Kurd alliance, voted in favor of the legislation, party leaders said.

About 130 members of Parliament voted for the measure, out of about 140 who were present. Kurdish legislators walked out of the session, as did the Shiites who supported them, according to members who were there. The most highly disputed section of the law was decided by secret ballot, a rare measure.

The disagreement centered on the multiethnic city of Kirkuk, one of several areas in Iraq where there are competing claims over which province a city or district belongs in. The question for Kirkuk is whether it should be absorbed into the Kurdistan region — a particularly charged question because the city sits on some of the largest unexploited oil reserves in the country. Both Arabs and Kurds lay claim to the area.

At bottom, the disagreement is also about the ethnic identity of Iraq and about Arab frustration with the Kurds. Although the Kurds are a minority, they have proved adept at turning the political process to their advantage, often to the chagrin of larger ethnic and religious groups.

It is an article of faith among Kurds that Kirkuk should be part of the Kurdistan region, a principle on which they have refused to compromise.

Kirkuk, the capital of Tamim Province, is home to Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens as well as Christians. Successive political policies altered the demographics of the area. Saddam Hussein forced Kurds out and moved Arabs in.

After Mr. Hussein’s ouster, the Kurds tried to reverse his policies, pushing Kurds to return and Arabs to leave.

The United Nations, which has a mandate to help Iraqis find a political solution for the disputed areas, has been lobbying Parliament to delay provincial elections in Kirkuk until there is a political solution satisfactory to all sides, said Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special representative for Iraq.

The legislation approved by Parliament lays out the rules for campaigning and for the participation of political parties on the ballot. It also includes a provision indefinitely delaying provincial elections in Kirkuk. The delay itself was not in dispute; the specifics of how Kirkuk would be governed during the delay is what set off the Kurds’ vehement objections.

The law divides power in the provincial council and in the leadership posts equally among Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds. Currently, the Kurds hold slightly more than half the seats on the council, as well as the governorship and the chairmanship of the council.

The law does not address whether Kirkuk should become part of Kurdistan. Another provision would also move responsibility for security in Kirkuk to “military units brought from the middle and south of Iraq.” The Kurds, whose pesh merga army currently has a significant role in the area, were infuriated by this proposal.

“It’s humiliating to all the soldiers who are there,” Mr. Othman said. “That means you don’t trust their loyalty to the state or to the Constitution; it is not a helpful paragraph. They did it just to irritate, to provoke the Kurds. That paragraph is negative, totally negative and very negative.”

The provision also required the creation of a committee to set up the new provincial council.

“Before, if the Kurds said no to any legislation, it would not pass,” said Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite member of Parliament who joined the Kurds in refusing to vote on the measure. “This was very historic, this was the first time the Kurds lost the ballot and it was really surprising.”

Some lawmakers said passage of the measure was not meant to be the final word, but only to force the Kurds to compromise, although they hardly sounded prepared to do so.

“Definitely today is a loss,” said Fouad Massoun, the leader of the Kurdish bloc in Parliament. “But we have been fighting for Kirkuk for 50 years, and they think they can take what we’ve got with this law?”

He added: “We will never withdraw from Kirkuk, And I am telling you this law will never be approved this year.”

In other developments, a Kurdish political journalist, Sorine Khaka, was killed Monday in Kirkuk. A senior police official in Kirkuk was also killed, along with a police officer, when a bomb exploded near them as they were working to defuse a improvised explosive device.

Riyadh Muhammed and Suadad al-Salhy contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from the Kurdistan region.