Washington, February 05: Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab official is urging all Iraqi parties to respect a decision to reinstate hundreds of Sunni election candidates, a decision welcomed by the Obama administration.
After talks this week in Washington with President Barack Obama and other senior US officials, Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi spoke Thursday of continued efforts to prevent the candidates from running in the March 7 elections.
Hashimi welcomed US calls for all-inclusive elections, although he noted the Obama administration was taking a “low-profile role” to avoid interfering in Baghdad’s internal politics.
A panel of judges decided Wednesday to reinstate more than 500 candidates with alleged links to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein who had been barred from the general elections.
But Iraq’s Shiite-led government branded the decision “illegal” and “unconstitutional,” while Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki convened parliament to debate the move on Sunday.
“I hope not,” Hashimi replied when reporters interviewing him in a Washington hotel asked whether he feared parliament would try to annul the group’s candidacies.
“The decision taken by the appeal committee should be respected by all parties,” he added, insisting it would be illegal to reverse the panel’s decision.
“Hopefully, it will be debated in the parliament but at the end of the day I think nobody has the right to block the decision taken by the committee.”
Hashimi, who also met here with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his first visit to Washington since 2007, doubted whether a quorum could be obtained on Sunday because parliament is in recess and most lawmakers have left town.
The vice president warned it “could be dangerous” if may Iraqis consider the election illegitimate, with bitterness turning to anger and leading to “highly unpredictable consequences.”
He acknowledged that any instability in Iraq could alter the timetable for US troops to leave Iraq. Under an agreement between Washington and Baghdad, all US combat troops will exit the country by August.
Iraqis’ “mentality has changed in the last year” and they consider it a “shame” for politicians to use a sectarian tone to win loyalty, even if many still resort to such tactics, according to Hashimi.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley meanwhile hailed the Iraqi ruling to reinstate the candidates as “a very useful step in moving ahead toward the election.”
He urged the Iraqi government to “make sure that this continues to be an open process,” while insisting the process was an Iraqi one.
“We would discourage any steps that we think will hamper the emergence of an effective, popular and legitimate Iraqi government,” said Crowley.
The blacklist sparked tensions between the country’s Shiite majority and its Sunni Arab former elite, alarming the White House and the United Nations, which have both expressed concerns about the election’s credibility in recent weeks.
—Agencies