Iraqi panel issues final ruling barring 2 prominent Sunni politicians from running in election

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Iraqi panel bars 2 Sunni politicians from election

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi panel issued a final ruling Thursday to bar two prominent Sunni politicians from running in next month’s elections, a move that is likely to raise tensions between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are being politically undermined.

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.

Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad, a few hours ahead of the official start of the election season that was to begin Friday.

Ali al-Lami, head of the Shiite-led political vetting committee that drafted the blacklist, told The Associated Press he had been informed by the court of its decision against Sunni lawmakers Saleh al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani.

Both men, who are members of Iraq’s parliament, were disqualified from the vote because of what al-Lami called “overwhelming” evidence of their Baathist loyalty.

Attempts to reach members of the seven-judge appeals panel were not immediately successful late Thursday.

Al-Mutlaq and al-Ani are the most prominent Sunni lawmakers to be disqualified. Their initial rejection by al-Lami’s committee 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 Nouri al-Maliki, has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party. He could not immediately be reached for comment, and an aide said al-Mutlaq was not aware of the ruling Thursday night.

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 called it “a gift to the Iranian government” — a jab accusing the panel of being influenced by Tehran’s Shiite leadership.

He also claimed the decision was politically motivated and motivated in part by threats to members of the appeals panel.

The judicial panel issued the order as part of its review of 177 candidates who have appealed a decision by al-Lami’s committee 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.

Only 13 appeals have been granted as of Thursday night, while at least 99 were rejected, al-Lami said. The panel was expected to finish its review by Friday.

Election officials had asked the nation’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, for a final ruling on whether to open next month’s balloting to the banned candidates after an appeals court temporarily set aside the initial ban.

Some Sunnis have threatened to boycott the vote if the blacklisted candidates are not allowed to run. Belief among Sunnis that they are being shut out of the election could set back progress the U.S. military made in 2006 and 2007 in reversing the insurgency, which threatened Iraq with civil war.

Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, called the appeals panel and the overall de-Baathification process a power grab by al-Maliki.

“This was not a normal appeals court, this was a blatant political operation from beginning to end,” Ottaway said. “This is becoming a typical Arab election — essentially a process by which everything is manipulated by the government.”

Al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government has pushed hard to weed out Saddam-era officials from public offices and security forces, a policy initiated by the United States shortly after the 2003 invasion. But many Sunnis believe the policy went too far — penalizing innocent people who had to join the Baath party to advance their careers or gain favors such as seats for advanced university degrees.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said 250 private security guards who have been told to leave Iraq within days because of links to the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide cannot appeal the order. The expulsion comes in the wake of a U.S. judge’s dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

“We decide whether foreign security companies stay or not,” al-Bolani said.

Associated Press Writers Lara Jakes, Chelsea J. Carter and Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.