Baghdad, January 09: Fourteen Iraqi politicians and parties accused of having links to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party have been barred from taking part in parliamentary elections in March, a senior lawmaker said on Friday.
The decision to bar them from the polls, the second since Saddam’s ouster after a US-led invasion in 2003, might undermine efforts towards national reconciliation in Iraq, which was ruled by Sunni Arabs for the majority of the 20th century but whose government is now Shiite-led.
Among the most prominent politicians banned was Saleh al-Mutlak, a secular Sunni who heads the National Dialogue Front.
“The decision has been taken by the commission after the emergence of evidence showing that Mutlak promoted and glorified the forbidden Baath party,” said Falah Shanshal, an MP loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and head of the parliamentary panel charged with de-Baathification.
“Mutlak said in parliament, ‘I will vote in the name of the Baath.’ These words themselves are propaganda for the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, and the constitution prevents voting for the Baath.”
Shanshal confirmed that 13 other individuals or parties had been barred, but did not give details. They can all appeal the ruling in court, he added.
Haidar al-Mullah, a spokesman for the National Dialogue Front, said the bloc had not been officially informed of the decision.
He accused Iran of being behind the decision to bar Mutlak from contesting the polls, just a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki completed a one-day visit to Baghdad.
“There are regional influences, particularly from Iran, taking such decisions, which aim to destabilise the Iraqi political process,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hamdia al-Husseini, a senior election official, said Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission had not received any request to block any names from participating in the election.
On October 28, the National Dialogue Front confirmed that it was joining forces with Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and the bloc headed by ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite, to contest the March 7 election.
—Agencies