A Shiite official Thursday announced a coalition of 228 candidates backed by leading cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to contest Iraq's Jan. 30 elections. The coalition, called the United Iraqi Alliance, includes two major Shiite political parties — the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Dawa Party — and the Iraqi National Congress, led by former exile and one-time Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, Dawa party official Ali al-Adeeb told a news conference. Independent Sunni Muslims belonging to various tribal groups are included on the list, but no major Sunni political movements were named.
In the first popular vote since Saddam Hussein's ouster, Iraqis will choose a 275-member assembly that will write a permanent constitution. If adopted in a referendum next year, the constitution would form the legal basis for another general election to be held by Dec. 15. Under an election law adopted this year, there will be no electoral boundaries for the January vote, with the entire country treated as a single constituency.
Major parties representing Iraq's 20 percent minority Sunnis have called for the vote's postponement because they say the country is not secure enough. Sunni clerics from the Association of Muslim Scholars urged Sunnis to boycott the election to protest last month's U.S.-led assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. The influential religious group reiterated its call for Sunnis to boycott the polls, describing as "madness" plans to hold them in January. "The association's stance toward the elections is firm and unchanged — we will not take a part in these elections because ... no elections can be held under the pressure of the Americans and the ... deteriorating security situation," said Sheik Mohamed Bashar Al-Faidhi, an association spokesman. | Kennel your dogs, then, and the security situation goes away. Oh wait, you're the minority party. You don't want the security situation to go away. |
Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the party of Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, who supported the call for postponing the elections, was among the first to register after the sign-up process began Nov. 1. He added, however, that the party — the Independent Democratic Movement — has yet to submit a candidates' list. Pachachi was not immediately available for comment. | "We'll get back to you, k?" |
A member of the six-member committee that drew up the United Iraqi Alliance list, nuclear physicist Hussain al-Shahristani, said the movement of firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had been left off the list because it is no longer relevant has not registered with Iraq's electoral commission. "The Sadrist movement announced that it supports the religious authorities and its call for Iraqis to hold elections," al-Shahristani added. "It also supports the list." | "Like Tater's opinion matters...don't make me laugh." |
Al-Sistani, an Iranian-born cleric, has been working to unite Iraq's majority Shiites ahead of the vote to ensure victory, plus include representatives from Iraq's other diverse communities. Al-Sistani has been overseeing the work of top aides to compile the list for the national elections, which Shiite parties are expected to perform strongly in. "The different parties and the national figures asked the religious authority to help it form an alliance that represents the Iraqi spectrum with its various religious, ethnic and geographic components," al-Shahristani said. | Well, now. Sounds like progress. Unless all the unity talk is just a smokescreen for the "Extremely Islamic and Quasi-Democratic Shi'a Republic of al-Sistani." |
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