Several prominent Iraq politicians fail to get into parliament, new election lists show

Prominent Iraq politicians fail to win seats

BAGHDAD — Several prominent Iraqi politicians — long considered untouchable — failed to win seats in the country’s March 7 election, according to lists published Monday, reflecting voter dissatisfaction with the country’s political class.

Their failure comes as weeks of haggling to form a new government lie ahead, possibly opening the way for renewed violence and instability as the U.S. is preparing to withdraw all its troops from the country.

The list of candidates who made it into the 325-member parliament were surprising for the absence of several household names of the faction-ridden politics of the past few years.

Those who didn’t make the cut included the powerful Ali al-Lami of the Shiite religious bloc, who led a government vetting panel that banned about 450 candidates, mostly Sunnis, from running in the elections for alleged ties to Saddam Hussein’s old party.

Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obeidi and national security adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie were also not re-elected. Neither was veteran Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, an elderly statesman from a prominent Baghdad family. Pachachi, in his 80s, had been rarely attending parliament sessions.

For the first time, Iraqis had the chance to vote for individual candidates, instead of just political parties, on an open ballot sheet, allowing them to choose — or vote out — certain individuals.

The result was that many of the movers and shakers in the halls of government and parliament found that they didn’t have any support among the voters.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose election list didn’t receive the most seats, rebuked the United Nations for not backing his demand for a recount.

The demand is part of al-Maliki’s campaign to challenge election results showing him a close second to his chief rival, the secular Ayad Allawi, who received backing from both Sunnis and Shiites.

In remarks to the private Al-Sumariya TV late Sunday, al-Maliki criticized the U.N. mission in Iraq, which had said that the voting was transparent and fair, with no widespread fraud.

He reprimanded U.N. envoy Ad Melkert for not pushing the electoral commission to approve the recount request for what al-Maliki’s bloc has contended were irregularities and vote rigging. The commission, an independent body appointed by parliament, rejected the demand as unnecessary.

“The UN should have further encouraged the commission to carry out a recount,” he said.

A public information officer for UN in Iraq, Randa Jamal, said Monday that the UN only advises Iraq institutions “at the invitation of the government on an impartial basis” while the electoral commission has “sole decision-making power.”

Neither Allawi’s Iraqiya, with 91 seats, nor al-Maliki’s State of Law with 89, have an outright majority, but Allawi should be entitled to the first shot at forging a ruling coalition.

In a legal push, al-Maliki extracted a Supreme Court decision just before the election results were released on Friday allowing for alliances formed after the elections to form the next government.

There has also been a push to have 50 candidates, mostly from Allawi’s list, disqualified over alleged ties to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Al-Maliki has also opened negotiations with both Iraq’s Kurdish Alliance and the Shiite religious bloc, two major groups whose votes he will need for any future government.

Since the elections and the announcement of the results there has been regular, though fairly minor, incidents of violence. It is unclear if these are by insurgents or factions out to settle political scores.

A pair of car bombs exploded Monday in the holy city of Karbala near the governor’s residence killing at least four people and wounding 63, police officials said.

Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report in Baghdad