Legislators meet over Ba’ath candidate row
Salam Faraj
BAGHDAD, Feb. 7: Iraqi legislators were on Sunday gathering to debate a controversial decision to allow hundreds of candidates linked to executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party to compete in March 2010 elections. Campaigning for the March 7 vote has already been postponed for a week due to the dispute after a panel of judges said around 500 people accused of ties to the war-torn country’s former regime could after all run for office.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government last week branded the ruling to reinstate the candidates as “illegal” and recalled Parliament for an emergency session that is due to start at 4.00 pm. There were demonstrations against the overturn of the ban in Baghdad and the dominant Shia cities of Basra and Najaf on Sunday. Several hundred protesters congregated outside Baghdad provincial government headquarters, carrying banners that read “We condemn and reject the return of the Ba’ath Party,” and “No Ba’athists or Saddam.”
The judges decided to allow the previously barred candidates to stand, saying they would examine their files after the polls and would eliminate them if they were found to be Ba’athists.
A statement from Mr Maliki’s office on Saturday said leaders had “agreed on the need to resolve the issue of those barred (from the elections). —AFP
