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Iraq

Election campaign officially kicks off in Iraq

2010-02-13

[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq has officially kicked off the election season ahead of the March nationwide vote. Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad and other cities on Friday, urging people to the polls. In Basra, one poster read: "Your city needs someone who knows what Basra needs." But in a move likely to raise tensions between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are politically undermined, an Iraqi panel on Thursday barred two prominent Sunni politicians from running in the March 7 election. The announcement came after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that judges would resolve a simmering row over who can stand in the elections before official campaigning starts on Feb. 12. "Evidence" The back-and-forth over a decision to blacklist hundreds of candidates from the March 7 vote because of ties to Saddam Hussein's former Baathist regime has threatened to mar the balloting process, which U.S. officials hope could be a milestone in reconciliation among Iraq's rival religious groups. Sunni lawmakers Saleh al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani, who are members of Iraq's parliament, were disqualified from the vote because of "overwhelming" evidence of their Baathist loyalty, according to the panel. Al-Mutlaq and al-Ani are the most prominent Sunni lawmakers to be disqualified. Their initial rejection weeks ago was seen by many Iraqis as proof of a campaign against Sunnis, even though many Shiites also are on the blacklist. Al-Mutlaq, a fierce critic of Shiite Prime Minister Maliki, has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party. Al-Ani took the helm of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament after its moderate leader Harith al-Obeidi was assassinated in June 2009. He said he had not yet been officially informed about the decision but said it was politically motivated and called it "a gift to the Iranian government" -- a jab accusing the panel of being influenced by Tehran's Shiite leadership. The judicial panel issued the order as part of its review of 177 candidates who have appealed a decision to exclude them from the ballot. More than 200 other candidates have either failed to appeal or were replaced by with other hopefuls by their party alliances.

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Iraq

Election panel bars 2 Sunni politicians from election

2010-02-12

12 February 2010 BAGHDAD — An official says an Iraqi appeals panel has issued a final ruling barring two prominent Sunni politicians from running in the March elections. Ali al-Lami, director of a Shiite-led panel that has blacklisted hundreds of candidates, says he was informed by the court of its decision against Sunni lawmakers Salah al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani. Al-Lami says both were disqualified because of “overwhelming' ties to Saddam Hussein's former Baathist regime. Seems like a good reason ... He says the ruling was issued Thursday by the seven-judge committee reviewing evidence against 177 candidates who had challenged the blacklist by al-Lami's panel. Some Sunnis have threatened to boycott the March 7 vote if the blacklisted candidates are not allowed to run.

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Iraq

Iraqis blame al-Qaida for Sunni lawmakers killing

2009-06-14

[Jerusalem Post Middle East] The government blamed al-Qaida in Iraq Saturday for the killing of a prominent Sunni lawmaker, as political figures joined together across sectarian lines in a show of solidarity against a return to violence. Sunni and Shi'ite lawmakers called the slaying of Harith al-Obeidi - the leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament - an attack against moderation, as they took turns at the podium to call for a united front against terrorism. Al-Obeidi and a bodyguard were gunned down as they left a mosque after Friday prayers. The Iraqi parliament held a special session to honor him after a funeral service at Baghdad's Convention Center in the guarded Green Zone. US and Iraqi officials have warned violence is expected to increase as insurgents try to rekindle sectarian violence before national elections scheduled for early next year. The brazen daylight shooting in a heavily guarded area also raised new concerns about the ability of Iraqi forces to maintain security with US forces withdrawing from cities by the end of the month. The attack took place in a western Baghdad neighborhood that was a Sunni insurgent stronghold until local tribal leaders turned against al-Qaida in Iraq. Shi'ite lawmaker Jalaluddin al-Saghir called on Iraqis to unite against a resurgence of violence, which has fallen sharply over the past two years. "They think they can mess with the political process and those supporting it when the American forces leave," he said at the parliamentary session. "We have to improve the security forces ... to make it impossible for such killers and criminals to bring us back to square one of civil and sectarian wars," he said. The 47-year-old lawmaker had been a champion of prisoners' rights and was at the center of a stormy parliamentary debate over claims of torture in Iraqi jails. He was known for his advocacy for both Sunni and Shi'ite detainees. Colleagues said that the day before his death, he had called on parliament to summon officials from the interior and defense ministries, which oversee the jails, to respond to the allegations. That raised suspicion that his slaying may have been linked to his campaign on behalf of detainees. But Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the evidence so far indicates al-Qaida in Iraq was behind the attack. He declined to elaborate while the investigation is ongoing. The Sunni terror network and other insurgents have frequently targeted other Sunnis who are perceived as cooperating with the US-backed government's efforts to promote national reconciliation. During the funeral, which was broadcast on all of Iraq's television stations, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and lawmakers from all sects vowed the killing would not set back security gains in Iraq. Two caskets holding al-Obeidi and his bodyguard were carried by an Iraqi military honor guard. Hundreds of people later gathered for his burial in the main Sunni cemetery near the Abu Hanifa mosque in northern Baghdad. "His assassination is an attempt to embarrass al-Maliki's government, the reconciliation project and renew the chaos and turmoil of the past," said Sheik Kheir-Allah al-Basri, a Shi'ite lawmaker. Sunni lawmaker Dhafir al-Ani applauded al-Obeidi's political moderation. "Al-Obeidi established a school of moderation inside the parliament. He expressed his position with courage and without any fear," he said. Al-Obeidi took the helm of the Iraqi Accordance Front - which holds 44 seats in the 275-member parliament - in May after his predecessor, Ayad al-Samarraie, became the parliamentary speaker. He was the fourth Iraqi member of parliament to be killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

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Iraq

Iraq government takes shape

2006-05-17

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's new government is finally taking shape and could be unveiled this week, negotiators said on Tuesday, signalling a compromise among sectarian and ethnic factions to rally behind Shi'ite strongman Nuri al-Maliki. Senior negotiators from most groups involved in efforts to form a national unity government told Reuters Maliki could name his cabinet as early as Thursday, before the Muslim weekend and four days ahead of a constitutional deadline set a month ago. "The government is in its final form now. Maliki will absolutely meet the constitutional deadline and will announce the government before it," said Dhafir al-Ani, spokesman of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front. "Nobody wants him to fail. Even those who oppose the political process will not put up obstacles." A senior Shi'ite negotiator said: "The government will be ready soon ... I mean probably in the next 48 hours." All played down the significance of a widely leaked list indicating which party would take which ministry, saying there were still disputes, notably on the health ministry. Many names are still in play for key posts, including interior minister. One surprise could be the nomination of controversial former exile Ahmad Chalabi to that vital security job, several sources said. The much-criticised interior minister may go to finance. Good lord, Chabbers rises from the dead again. He's got more lives than Rasputin, and a worse reputation. In a three-year-old political system used to pushing any deadline to its limit -- and indeed beyond -- an early end to the talks may be a sign Maliki has managed to put his inclusive rhetoric into practice in his month as prime minister-designate. Once a hawkish defender of the Shi'ite Islamist corner in parliament, some minority leaders and Western diplomats praise what they call his new-found statesmanship and portray him as a classic hardliner strong enough to make concessions for peace. He has faced some of his toughest opposition within his own Alliance bloc. One party in the Shi'ite coalition walked out of the negotiations in protest at losing the oil ministry. It is now widely expected to go to another Alliance figure, former nuclear physicist and dissident Hussain al-Shahristani. Similarly, followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mehdi Army, are making veiled threats of a walkout if they do not retain the health ministry, promised to the Sunnis. Some officials said it was still possible Maliki may leave sensitive posts such as interior and defence vacant if he cannot resolve disputes this week. The former is expected to go to a Shi'ite and the latter to a Sunni -- but both, not least due to heavy U.S. pressure -- are subject to a veto by every party. Chalabi, a wealthy, U.S.-educated businessman turned secular Shi'ite power broker on his return home, has emerged as a possible interior minister, sources from several parties said. Though the outgoing deputy prime minister failed to win a seat in December and has long lost his pre-war clout with the Pentagon, he has won respect for his handling of Iraq's battered economy in the past year and is a consummate political survivor.

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Iraq

Sunnis trade horses with Kurds

2006-01-03

A delegation from the main Sunni coalition, the Arab National Accordance Front, met senior Kurdish officials on Sunday, possibly holding preliminary discussions about the formation of a coalition government ahead of final election results due to be released this week. It was the first trip by a Sunni Arab delegation to Iraq's Kurdish region after the 15 December parliamentary elections, whose results have been contested by the sectarian minority and secular parties. The 10-member delegation was led by two of the front's three leaders: Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the General Conference of the Iraqi People, and Tariq al-Hashimi, head of the Iraqi Islamic party. A representative of the secular party led by Iyad Allawi, a Shia and the former prime minister, said the group had not been invited to the Kurdish north, which in recent days has seen a flurry of post-election bargaining between the Kurds and the governing Shia United Iraqi Alliance, which has a strong election lead. Dhafir al-Ani, spokesman for the Accordance Front, told Aljazeera.net the visit had objectives different from those of the visits by al-Jaafari and al-Hakim. "Mr al-Jaafari and Mr al-Hakim may have talked about the formation of the new government in light of the results of last December's elections, but we have a different point of view," he said. "We sought the meeting with Mr Barzani to try to find an exit to solve the differences triggered by the election results," he told Aljazeera.net. Sunni Arab and secular Shia groups have complained that widespread fraud and intimidation tainted the elections and have demanded a rerun of the poll in some provinces including Baghdad, the country's largest with 59 of parliament's 275 seats. They have also welcomed an international electoral monitoring team that is to arrive in Baghdad on Monday to assess the election process, a key opposition demand.

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