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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Sunni Party Drops Out Of Iraq's National Elections
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| Parent(s) |
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| Contributor | Penguin |
| Last Edited | Penguin Feb 20, 2010 03:32pm |
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| Category | General |
| Author | HAMZA HENDAWI |
| News Date | Saturday, February 20, 2010 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | A top Sunni Arab lawmaker banned from running in Iraq's March 7 election withdrew his entire party from the campaign Saturday and called on other groups to join the boycott, a move that threatened to undermine the credibility of the vote and raise sectarian tensions.
In announcing his decision, Saleh al-Mutlaq seized on U.S. concerns about Iran's influence in the political process, an allegation likely to resonate with a Sunni community that is historically suspicious of the intentions in Iraq of Tehran's clerical rulers.
Al-Mutlaq's National Dialogue Front has 11 seats in the outgoing legislature, the second-largest Sunni bloc in parliament, and fared surprisingly well in provincial elections in January last year. The group is the main Sunni faction of the Iraqi National Movement, the nation's top secular alliance that has been expected to pose a tough challenge to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led coalition.
Sunni leaders have been threatening for weeks to boycott the vote after a Shiite-led panel vetting candidates for suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime blacklisted more than 400, mostly Sunni candidates, including al-Mutlaq, preventing them from running in the parliamentary election. Al-Mutlaq says he quit Saddam's ruling Baath Party in the 1970s. |
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