A standoff over who can run in next month's election could throw the country into chaos, writes Salah Hemeid If there was any remaining doubt that Iraqi politicians are driving their beleaguered country fast towards a staggering national crisis because of their power struggle, they dispelled it with their failure this week to resolve a row over a ban on hundreds of candidates in next month's parliamentary election. The dispute sharpened after Shia leaders rejected an appeal of panel's decision to postpone a ruling over the fate of the mostly Sunni candidates until after the 7 March elections following a government vetting commission's decision to disqualify them for alleged links with Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Although the seven-member court backed off and decided Sunday to begin reviewing the disqualifications immediately and complete the process before the election campaign begins Friday, the row never abated as Sunni leaders viewed the review as a way for the Shia-led government to undercut Sunni efforts to expand their political clout in the vote. The latest row is typical of the disputes which have marred Iraqi politics and inflamed ethnic tensions since the 2003 US invasion of the country and the launch of a sect-based political system that gave Shia and Kurds a larger share in power and resources in post-Saddam Iraq over Sunni Arabs who ruled the roost under the Baath Party's 35-year rule. But if the ban was nothing but a witch-hunt as many Sunnis perceive it, Shia who were marginalised under the Baath see the challenge to the ban as a plot to dislodge them from their hard won power and reinstall a Sunni-dominated regime instead. Considering the recriminations, Iraqis are again expected to vote along sectarian lines, despite campaign appeals to national unity. Shia political parties staged demonstrations in several provinces this week denouncing those sympathetic to the Baath Party and demanding enforcing the ban on Saddam loyalists. At a rally in Baghdad, Governor Salah Abdel-Razzak, a senior official of the Daawa Party, which is led by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, vowed to purge Baath loyalists from the local government. Local government leaders in Basra affiliated with Daawa and the other main Shia blocs, made similar vows to purge the city of Baath sympathisers and threatened to declare Iraq's second largest city and its only outlet to the sea a semi- independent federal province. The city council also threatened to halt oil production (some 90 per cent of Iraq's output) to cut off resources from the rest of the country. By fanning fears of a Baathist revival Al-Maliki and other Shia leaders, backed by their Kurdish allies, are trying to win over Shia voters, but they are also risking opening old wounds, hardening sectarian divisions and spawning political deadlock in a way that threatens the national harmony and the future of Iraq itself. Both Shia and Iraq's minority Kurds were brutally suppressed under Saddam's regime, but the way they are seeking justice and accountability from his loyalists seems to lack political shrewdness and is breeding general mistrust. On Tuesday the electoral commission said only 37 of the disqualified candidates had lodged their appeal correctly to the watchdog itself while the rest lost their opportunity to review their ban because they lodged them to the appeals panel directly. Now, if the appeals panel endorses the ban many Sunnis might consider boycotting the election which many Iraqis hoped would mean peace and stability for their war-torn nation. Sunnis largely boycotted the last national election in 2005 and resentment at their loss of power helped fuel a ferocious insurgency. It is even feared that Sunnis may take up arms again if they feel they are being disenfranchised this time. Iyad Allawi, who leads the mostly Sunni dominated Iraqiya list in the 7 March vote, said the ban could trigger a resurgence in sectarian attacks, reversing a relative three year-old calm. Sunni Vice-President Tariq Al-Hashimi raised concern about the issue in a round of Washington meetings this week indicating that Sunnis are considering the idea of refusing to recognise the election if the Sunnis are again excluded. The United States, which still has more than 100,000 troops in Iraq, has expressed concern that the exclusion of Sunnis from the election would undermine the process and perhaps spur new unrest that could complicate US troop withdrawal plans. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday the United States would oppose any new effort to exclude large numbers of Sunni Arab politicians from Iraq's parliamentary elections. Iraqi Shia leaders say they will not allow Washington to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs by meddling in the effort to bar candidates with Baath ties. This endangerss military, political and economic ties with the United States, which are critical to US plans to counter Iran's influence. The Shia leaders, who are accused of having strong ties with Persian Iran, are also risking losing Arab backing which is essential for their re- integration into the Arab Sunni dominated region. Last week Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa praised the decision to lift the ban. Arabs will be disappointed if the ban is reinstated and Iraqi Sunnis made to feel marginalised. Even worse, the simmering dispute which threatens to drag Iraq into civil war will undermine Iraq's reemerging oil industry. In recent weeks Iraq has signed several contracts with foreign companies to invest in developing Iraq's oil fields, sitting on the world's second largest reserves. But if the bickering continues and further inflames the political landscape, it is uncertain that the foreign firms will venture to start operations, however lucrative the deals are, depriving Iraq of revenues badly needed for reconstruction. In the meantime, voter apathy and disillusionment are mounting. The ballot, delayed for months by the standoff, has become a contest not of ideas but for the advantage in the way the vote itself will be conducted and the parliamentary seats distributed. For mainstream Iraqis, tired of many years of violence, lack of public services and corruption, the bickering is just a pretext by the election rivals on both sides of the sectarian divide to maintain power and maintain their grip on the government and nation's wealth.
