BAGHDAD — The decision to ban Iraqi election candidates accused of links with the Baath party of executed dictator Saddam Hussein could exclude Sunnis from the political arena and usher in new sectarian tensions.
The move also threatens to damage the March 7 ballot by creating a campaign battleground focused on past quarrels rather than a much needed search for solutions to myriad problems facing the war-torn country, analysts told AFP.
Leading Sunni politicians also voiced anger at an official blacklist that bars 500 candidates including defence minister Abdel Qader Jassem al-Obeidi from the vote, purportedly under a law that bans Baathists from all elections.
However, members of the committee of integrity and accountability whose job is to vet applicants and purge unsuitable contenders are themselves facing charges of illegitimacy as they have not been approved by parliament.
Those banned from the election, the second since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam but provoked an insurgency that saw tens of thousands die in sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007, include prominent Sunni lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlak, a persistent critic of the government.
"The decision to exclude Mutlak and others means Iraq is getting dangerously close to a repeat of the heated, sectarian political atmosphere seen in the December 2005 elections," said Reidar Visser, a noted Iraq analyst.
"It means Iraqis will be looking to the past, focusing on settling scores, instead of facing the future and the many specific issues that need to be solved," added Visser who runs the Iraq-focused website www.historiae.org.
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6:26 AM
Moderate Islamist here
