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| Iraq |
| Sunni bloc to boycott Iraq's national elections |
| 2010-02-21 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] A prominent Sunni Muslim politician banned from running in Iraq's parliamentary vote next month has withdrawn his party from the ballot, a spokesman said on Saturday, calling on others to join the boycott. Billiant. Simply brilliant. If you don't run you won't win, but I guess you won't suffer a humiliating loss, either. Just hands the Shi'a crazies power for the next five years. Brilliant indeed ... Iraq's once-dominant minority Sunnis largely shunned the national vote in 2005, fuelling a bloody insurgency that U.S. and Iraqi officials hope Sunni participation in the coming election will help end. The National Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni MP banned from the election on account of links to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, confirmed its candidates would not contest the poll. "After the remarks of General Ray Odierno andChristopher Hill (U.S. ambassador to Baghdad) that the Justice and Accountability Committee (JAC) was being run by al-Quds forces (from Iran), the National Dialogue Front cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda," the group's spokesman Haider al-Mullah told reporters in Baghdad. "The National Dialogue Front therefore announces its stance is to boycott the forthcoming election and the invitation is open to other political entities to take the same stance." Mutlak was the number two candidate on former Shiite premier Allawi's broad-based Iraqiya coalition until the JAC barred the prominent Sunni MP from standing for office. The JAC is run by former Shiite deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi and his close ally Ali al-Allami, who spent a year in a U.S.-run jail in Iraq. While in Washington on Tuesday, General Odierno, the top US military officer in Iraq, said Chalabi and Allami had ties to the Quds force and "clearly are influenced by Iran." "We have direct intelligence that tells us that," the commander told an audience at the Institute for the Study of War in the US capital. Odierno said Chalabi and Allami have had several meetings in Iran with a close aide to the commander of the Quds, the covert operations arm of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards. "And we believe they're absolutely involved in influencing the outcome of the election. And it's concerning that they've been able to do that over time," Odierno said, apparently referring to the Tehran regime. The dispute over who can stand in the March 7 election has raised sectarian tensions and alarmed Washington, which views the polls as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011. |
| Posted by:Fred |