Iraq court reverses ban on candidates
Ruling would let alleged loyalists of Hussein run
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi appeals court yesterday overturned an effort to bar hundreds of candidates from Iraq’s upcoming national elections, opening the door for alleged loyalists of Saddam Hussein to run for office but at the same time reducing the risk of a Sunni boycott that would diminish the validity of the results.
The panel asked Iraq’s electoral commission to postpone the appeals of hundreds of candidates barred from running for office for alleged allegiance to the Ba’ath Party of Hussein. The candidates would be allowed to run in the March 7 parliamentary elections, and those who were elected would make their appeal after the election. If they did not prevail and were deemed unfit, they would be prohibited from taking the offices to which they had been elected.
The plan, which Iraqi officials said Vice President Joe Biden originally proposed during phone conversations last month, means the judicial panel probably would be confronted with only a handful of appeals cases, rather having to process appeals from hundreds of banned candidates in less than two months.
Electoral Commission officials were meeting last night to decide whether to accept the court’s recommendation and allow the barred candidates to run.
The United States and United Nations have pushed for transparency in the appeals process, fearing that if the banning of candidates was seen as sectarian or politically motivated, Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority would feel marginalized by the Shi’ite-led government and would refuse to participate in the vote.
The Accountability and Justice Commission, given the task of purging Hussein loyalists from government positions, announced the planned candidate ban last month, sending shockwaves through Iraq’s fragile political system. The commission barred about 500 candidates, some of whom were Shi’ites, but the most prominent of whom were secular or Sunni.
The commission yesterday condemned the appeals court decision as unconstitutional and said the judges were being unduly influenced by pressure from the United States.
“I appeal to the government, and the Foreign Ministry in particular, to ask the American Embassy in Baghdad to stop its interference and pressures on the accountability and electoral commissions,’’ the commission’s Ali Faisal al-Lami said on state television.
US officials say they are worried that if the targeted candidates were not allowed to participate, many would deem the election illegitimate and violence would escalate.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 
