Iraqi cabinet agrees provincial election law

BAGHDAD, April 13 (Reuters) - Iraq's cabinet has agreed on a draft of a law governing provincial elections to be held later this year and will now submit it for approval to parliament, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Sunday.

"The cabinet has endorsed it and will send it to parliament, which has 90 days to pass it," Dabbagh told a briefing in Baghdad.

The law governing elections for powerful provincial posts is one of the measures that Washington has encouraged Iraq's leadership to enact in an effort to reduce violence by luring alienated groups into the political process.

Dabbagh repeated government threats that groups with armed militia would be barred from standing in the poll, a measure that followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr say has been unfairly aimed against them.