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Ayad Allawi urges interim government in Iraq
The front-runner in Iraq's recent parliamentary elections on Wednesday called for the formation of an impartial, internationally supervised caretaker government. The interim government will prevent the country from sliding into violence and counter what he says are efforts to change the vote results.I think this means that Allawi is losing and knows it ... Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite whose cross-sectarian coalition narrowly won the most votes in the March 7 polling, said that disqualifying candidates and holding recounts is an attempt to steal the will of the Iraqi people.' The call comes after an Iraqi court charged with investigating election-related complaints disqualified one of his candidates over alleged ties to the former regime. Election officials confirmed that another nine winning candidates, including seven from Allawi's list and one from al-Maliki's, were being investigated. Hamdiya al-Hussaini of the election commission told The Associated Press that the court is expected to decide on the fate of the nine others by Monday. Disqualifying Allawi's candidates would favor incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law bloc, which came in second-placed, losing out to Allawi's coalition by just two seats. If the seven Iraqiya candidates and their votes are thrown out, it could change the seat count in the new 325-member parliament and potentially hand al-Maliki's coalition the lead. Certainly what is going on is a theft of the Iraqi will and democracy, jeopardizing the safety of the country,' Allawi told Iraq's al-Sharqiya channel. We will call for the forming of a new interim government.' Allawi called on international organizations like the U.N., the Arab League, the EU and the Organization of Islamic Conference to help establish the impartial interim government. But a U.N. officials in Baghdad dismissed the idea of the international community's closer involvement in Iraqi politics, saying those disputes can only be resolved by Iraqis themselves. They don't even want the Americans talking about internal Iraqi politics, can you imagine if the rest of the international community became involved?' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Rare sense from the UN ... Posted by: Steve White 2010-04-29 |
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