A government commission sought on Monday to disqualify six people who had won seats in Iraq’s parliamentary election and 46 other candidates because of what it called their ties to the banned Baath Party.
The disqualification effort, by Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Commission, could prove critical to the election’s outcome because the political alliance headed by Ayad Allawi, the country’s former interim prime minister, won only two seats more than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition in the March 7 contest.
At a news conference on Monday, the commission’s director, Ali Faisal al-Lami, refused to disclose the names or political affiliations of the 52 candidates the commission is seeking to disqualify. Many were likely to be members of Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition.
In January, the commission submitted a list of the names of hundreds of candidates to the Independent High Electoral Commission, which oversees elections, that it said should be prohibited from running for parliament because they had either promoted the Baath Party or had once held high-level positions in the organization.
The election commission later banned nearly 500 of the candidates, many of whom had been part of Allawi’s list.
Under normal circumstances, the election commission would seem to be legally compelled to follow the Accountability and Justice Commission’s latest recommendation as well.
The Accountability and Justice Commission’s current power is unclear, however, because it is attached to parliament, which is no longer in session.
“We do not have to abide by their recommendations because they no longer have authority,” said Sardar Abdul Qadir, a member of the election commission.
Another commission member, Saad al-Rawi, said the ultimate decision regarding the 52 candidates rested with Iraq’s court system.
“The decision is not in our hands,” al-Rawi said.
Also on Monday, the election commission released the names of the candidates who had won seats in the new parliament, including Ahmad Chalabi, who had failed to win a seat in the 2005 election.
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