Iraq’s once-dominant minority Sunnis largely shunned the national vote in 2005, fueling a bloody insurgency that US and Iraqi officials hope Sunni participation in the coming election will help end.
But a recent ban on candidates with alleged ties to the outlawed Sunni-dominated Baath party of dictator Saddam Hussein has fanned Sunni fears of a plot by Iraq’s majority Shiites to marginalize them ahead of the March 7 vote.
The parliamentary ballot is seen as a critical juncture as Iraq tries to move toward rebuilding after decades of war, and away from years of sectarian carnage between Shiites and Sunnis after the 2003 US invasion ousted Saddam.
“The National Dialogue Front has made its final stand. It will boycott the election, but it will stay part of the political process,” party spokesman Haider Al-Mulla said.
“The call is open for other political parties to take the same stand as our front. The whole issue is not related to (the candidate ban), rather the unsuitable atmosphere of this election,” he said in a statement.
The mostly Sunni party’s leader, Saleh Al-Mutlaq, was one of about 145 candidates from different parties whose appeals against a decision by a Shiite-dominated commission to bar them from the vote were rejected this month.
The ban actually affects more Shiites than Sunnis, but it includes prominent Sunnis and Shiites seeking secular alliances that are expected to fare well against the religious Shiite Islamist parties that have dominated Iraq since the invasion.
The controversy has threatened to re-open old sectarian wounds just as confessional carnage triggered by the US invasion fades, and Iraq starts to attract multi-billion dollar investments from global oil firms.
Mutlaq’s party was part of a cross-sectarian coalition, Iraqiya, headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite with ambitions to become prime minister again.
The Iraqiya list said it would continue to participate in the electoral process despite the boycott by one of its members.
“The list believes that the best reaction (against the candidate ban) is wide participation in the coming election and for our list to achieve a great win and to make forward-looking change,” said Maysoun Al-Damalouji, a spokeswoman for Iraqiya.
