Thread: Iraqis protest in support of 'Saddam' candidates ban

Iraqis protest in support of 'Saddam' candidates ban

Hundreds of Shiites staged demonstrations Thursday in Iraq's southern cities of Najaf and Basra in support of a decision to bar election candidates linked to ****uted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Election organisers have banned from the March 7 vote more than 500 candidates said to be members of Saddam's outlawed Baath political party or who formerly worked for his once deadly military and intelligence network.

In Shiite-majority Najaf, 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Baghdad, hundreds marched and some held banners that proclaimed: "Baathists and Nazis are two faces of the same coin," and "The return of the Baath is the return of attacks and prison," an AFP correspondent said.

The demonstration was organised by an association devoted to victims and prisoners of Saddam's toppled Sunni-minority regime.

"We ask the Baghdad government and local authorities to punish the Baath and its representatives who continue to belong to the party," said demonstrator Salah Al-Mussawi.

In Basra, Iraq's sprawling southernmost mainly-Shiite city, around 1,000 protesters took to the streets, some holding banners that said "Shame on Baathists" and "The Baathists of yesterday are the MPs of today."

The demonstrators in Najaf and Basra also demanded the lifting of parliamentary immunity for Dhafer Al-Ani, a leading Sunni MP who they said was an apologist for the Baath party. Ani, from the National Concord bloc, is among the 511 candidates excluded from taking part in the vote.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...ndidates%20ban

Iraq president queries legality of candidate vetting body

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani cast doubt on Thursday on the legality of a controversial committee that has barred more than 500 candidates linked to Saddam Hussein from standing for election.

"We asked in an official letter to judge Madhat al-Mahmud (president of the Iraqi Supreme Court) that he rule on the legality of the integrity and accountability committee," Talabani told reporters in Baghdad.

"Our question is: 'Is the organisation that took this decision legal?'"

Talabani was referring to the committee that has banned 511 candidates from standing in a May 7 general election, accusing them of being members or sympathisers of the e.xecuted dictator's outlawed Baath party, Fedayeen militia or Mukhabarat intelligence network.

Prominent Sunni Arab MPs have argued that the committee has no legal basis as it has not been approved by parliament.

The blacklist has sparked pre-election tensions between the country's Shiite majority and its Sunni Arab former elite, alarming the White House and the United Nations.

Talabani, who is himself a Kurd, urged people to draw a distinction between hardcore Saddam loyalists and the many more Iraqis who had no choice but to join the Baath party.

"We should not be unjust with them," Talabani said.

Asked whether the timing of the ban was wise just six weeks before the election, he replied: "I wish this decision had been taken another time."

Thousands of Shiites took to the streets in southern Iraq on Thursday urging that the ban be upheld. Sunnis, however, many of whom lost their jobs in a purge of Iraq's dominant public sector institutions after the US-led invasion of 2003, have said they are being marginalised ahead of the vote.

The integrity and accountability committee is headed by Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi who served as deputy prime mininster after the invasion and whose current job is to vet would-be candidates and purge those deemed unsuitable.

Chalabi was a key US ally when he spearheaded the case for war against Saddam, which was launched on the grounds that the dictator had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.

However, intelligence that Chalabi provided in support of those claims in the run-up to the invasion later turned out to be flawed and he subsequently fell out of favour with Washington.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...vetting%20body

Iraq govt urges barred candidates to denounce Saddam

The Iraqi government said on Friday that the more than 500 candidates disqualified from a March general election for alleged links to Saddam Hussein must denounce his ousted regime and its crimes. Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said in a statement that such a disavowal of the ****uted dictator and his now outlawed Baath party would enable the candidates' reintegration into Iraqi society, but he did not specifically offer reinstatement on the ballot papers.

"The Baathists whose names figure on the list drawn up by the integrity and accountability committee must declare their innocence and condemn the crimes and failings of Saddam Hussein's regime and the Baath party," Dabbagh said.

"It will provide them with the opportunity to live normally and integrate back into Iraqi society."

The blacklist of more than 500 names has stoked tensions between the Shiite majority that leads the government and the Sunni Arab former elite, alarming the White House and the United Nations ahead of the March 7 vote. The row sparked a flurry of contacts in recent days by US Vice President Joseph Biden aimed at brokering a compromise, notably through President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd.

Biden "proposed that the disqualifications be deferred until after the election and that those candidates who have been barred condemn and disavow the Baath party and undertake to act through democratic means," Talabani said.

But when asked by AFP, the head of the electoral commission, Faraj al-Haidari, said the government had "no authority to reintegrate the Baathists." He said that only the supreme court had the power to declare that the candidates' disqualifications "lacked a legal basis and to reinstate their names."

Talabani called on Thursday for just such a referral to the supreme court, questioning the legality of the integrity and accountability committee which drew up the blacklist.

"Our question is: 'Is the organisation that took this decision legal?'" the president said.

Prominent Sunni Arab MPs have advanced a similar argument, pointing out that the committee was never approved by parliament.

Baath party membership was essential for obtaining a job and promotion in Iraq's omnipotent public sector during Saddam's regime. But a process of de-Baathification was adopted by Washington diplomat Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, following the US-led invasion of 2003, which saw thousands of Saddam-era employees lose their jobs.

Talabani urged Iraqis to draw a distinction between hardcore Saddam loyalists and the many more who joined the Baath party for pragmatic reasons.

"Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to join the party because membership was mandatory," he said. "We should not be unjust with them."

But to reverse the candidates' disqualification would risk alienating the majority community in the run-up to the election, in which for the first time leading Shiite politicians are standing on opposing lists.

On Thursday, thousands of Shiites took to the streets of the central shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, as well as the main southern city of Basra, in support of the blacklist. Those barred include people accused of membership of the Baath party as well as Saddam's once deadly Fedayeen (Men of Sacrifice) militia and Mukhabarat intelligence division.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100122...t_afp/iraqvote

Writer reveals the existence of a plan to the Baath Party seizes parliament

List of coalition member emphasized the rule of law, MP Ali Adeeb the need for commitment of political leaders the terms of the Constitution, which prohibits the return of the dissolved Baath party to exercise political action.

The writer for "Radio Sawa" that the Constitution prohibits the participation of the Baath Party in the political process:

On the invitation of Vice President Joe Biden to reconsider the decisions of the accountability and justice, Adeeb said that "Biden is believed that they could to disavow (the expedition) with the word," adding that the patent must be "a real intentions, not in words":

The writer denied that there will be the politicization of the decisions of exclusion, pointing out that the proceedings of the accountability and justice, "legal and constitutional":

The writer attacked the deputy Dhafir al-Ani said that the Declaration of Attorney Alani patent from the Baath party, "political hypocrisy", pointing to the existence of a scheme for the Baath Party seizes the Parliament:

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Biden in Iraq to save the Baathists and the proposed declaration of innocence of Saddam's crimes .. A U.S. proposal to oust deracination

to translate the promises of US politicians who have been uprooted because of're promoting the Baath Party, and to work to overturn decisions by ablation or freezing, Vice President Joseph Biden, to Baghdad on Friday for talks with senior officials on the problems facing the next legislative elections.

He said a U.S. official who declined to be named, said Biden arrived to meet with officials following the tension prevailing after the decision of the accountability and justice, the prevention of hundreds of candidates from contesting the elections on charges of belonging to the dissolved Baath Party.

The Association of accountability and justice decided to prevent the 516 candidates from contesting the elections on charges of belonging to the outlawed Baath party constitution.

Following the United States and Britain to act for politicians like promoters sent Mutlaq and Ani Saad Asem al-Janabi and the rest of the uprooted, launched in the provinces massive demonstrations denouncing foreign intervention in the political process and try to support the return of the Baath and the Baathists to power through Nglglhm in the political process or the security services. The demonstrators called for state officials not to bow to U.S. pressure and burned pictures of Dhafir al-Ani, Saleh Mutlaq and banners describing the Baath Nazism.

In an attempt has been described as part of the pressure the British and US officials, initiated by the government to "open the door to break a deadlock this pressure and transit on the decisions of the accountability and justice," the government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, an "initiative" in which he called mop-up and covered by the decisions of those barred from contesting the elections the next legislative "to declare their innocence of the crimes of the Baathist regime and the innocence of the defunct Baath party" after objected that Washington and London to mop-up and caused fear and concern in some countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, which adopts the draft prepared by the Baath to power and financial support, political, and media.

Described the political circles and the popularity of this call by Skinner as "a serious slowdown and attempt to" dilute the resolutions of accountability, justice and evidence of the government's response to the pressures of regional and international levels.

President Jalal Talabani said yesterday in a conference on "support for the nomination and election of the Baathists, including Saleh Mutlaq" in a major shift in the position of the Kurds from the return of Baathists to power.

Revealed among a representative network of two rivers Net "on exposure of President Talabani to Dot strong from the US administration and specifically the US Vice President Biden and urge him to work with other politicians in order to ease the crisis until he arrived in Iraq" during a telephone interview on Monday and expressed his "Note on the credibility of the elections, and suggested that the exclusion after the election, on condition that the persons covered by resolution to condemn the Baath Party and disown it, and pledge to work through democratic means ".

Thus, it appears that the Baathist government's call to repudiate the political crimes of Saddam is the US proposal, mainly to contribute to saving perhaps politicians have promoted Baathists sent Astqtaboa Baathists from agents inside Iraq, such as the rules of Saleh al-Mutlaq, Dhafer al-Ani, of eradication is deprived of participation in the upcoming elections.

Is Biden will work to achieve the rescue of the Baathist politicians also promised US Ambassador Christopher Hill?! Or will be achieved without wishes?

Question .. Remain subject to answer or reject the acquiescence of state officials to pressure the U.S. and British waters?!

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Iraq reinstates 59 election candidates

Iraq has reinstated 59 previously banned election candidates on technical grounds, a senior official from an integrity and accountability committee said on Monday.

Ali al-Allami said 150 people had appealed for removal from a controversial blacklist of more than 500 names who could be excluded from the March 7 poll.

"After we got new information, we decided to accept the requests of 59 candidates," Allami told AFP, referring to errors in applicants' names, date of birth or other personal details that have since been corrected.

"We received a total of 150 requests," he added, without specifying the status of the 91 appeals that remain active.

According to Allami, 458 people are currently barred from contesting the election. The blacklist includes Iraqis from the minority Sunni Arab community as well as dominant Shiites.

The excluded candidates are accused of membership or other links to ****uted dictator Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, feared Fedayeen (Men of Sacrifice) militia or Mukhabarat intelligence agency.

The integrity and accountability committee whose probe has inflamed the political climate less than six weeks from polling day is headed by Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi, who was deputy prime minister after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

The election row sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent days, with US Vice President Joe Biden seeking to broker a compromise in Baghdad with Iraq's different factions, notably through Talabani, who is a Kurd.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...n%20candidates