Court overturns ban on 9 Iraqi candidates barred for ties to Saddam Hussein’s party

Court overturns ban on 9 Iraqi candidates

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi court overturned on Monday a ban on nine newly elected parliament members who had been barred by a committee vetting candidates for ties to Saddam Hussein’s regime, clearing a major hurdle to forming the new government.

The ban of the candidates, seven of them from a Sunni-backed bloc, was seen as an attempt to overturn election results that handed the Shiite prime minister a narrow loss and threatened to further delay what has already been a long, contentious election process.

“All the nine appeals were accepted, and we were informed officially about this and now they have the right to join the parliament as lawmakers,” said the Shiite head of the committee, Ali al-Lami.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki narrowly lost the March 7 election to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a fellow Shiite whose nonsectarian stance made him popular with the Sunni minority.

But al-Maliki has challenged the results at every turn, by demanding a recount of votes cast in Baghdad and benefiting by and sometimes appearing to encourage the actions of the Accountability and Justice Committee which initially pushed for the ban of the nine winning candidates.

If the candidates had been thrown out along with their votes, it could have tilted the election in the Shiite prime minister’s favor.

The results of the recount demanded by the prime minister were released Sunday, however, and showed no fraud. They did not change the outcome of the election.

And with the decision Monday by the seven-member appeals court of the Accountability and Justice Committee, the challenges to the election results appear to be coming to an end.

In the intervening time, however, the prime minister was able to create an alliance with a rival conservative Shiite bloc that put him in a solid position to create the next government.

Al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition has formed an alliance with the Iranian-backed Iraqi National Alliance, leaving them just four seats shy of the 163 seats needed to form a majority in parliament.

Some observers have questioned whether such tactics as calling for a recount and allowing the Accountability and Justice Committee to continue its campaign to bar candidates from the election was to stall the process so the grand Shiite alliance could be created.

Allawi, whose victory was celebrated by Sunnis across the country, still maintains it is his right to be the first to try to form a government but it is unclear whether he will ever get the chance, or if he does, who would be his prospective allies.

If Allawi’s coalition is cut out of the political process altogether, it runs the risk of disillusioning the country’s minority Sunni population.

Sunni anger with the political process was a key reason for the Sunni-led insurgency that wracked the country after the U.S.-led invasion.

_____

Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.