Dispute over candidate disqualifications could mar Iraqi vote's legitimacy

[sabra]

Source: WP

BAGHDAD -- A controversy over the disqualification of candidates threatened Tuesday to undermine the legitimacy of Iraq's recent elections and inflame supporters of a coalition seeking to topple the alliance led by the prime minister.

U.S. officials, who had deemed the elections historic, were growing increasingly concerned by the dispute Tuesday evening, fearing it could lead to violence.

The candidates were barred on election eve by a commission -- run by onetime U.S. ally Ahmed Chalabi and other Shiite politicians -- that was empowered to screen government officials for loyalty to Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party. Most of the 55 candidates who were disqualified belong to the Iraqiya list of former prime minister Ayad Allawi, which appears to have done well in secular and Sunni communities.

If the votes for the newly barred candidates are annulled, it could give the Iraqiya coalition powerful ammunition to allege vote-rigging by rival politicians, including some in the Shiite-led camp of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"It will be a very violent reaction," Allawi said in an interview Tuesday. "A lot of violence will take place, and God knows how this will end. I will tell you there is already an existing feeling that there was widespread rigging and widespread intimidation."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030902602.html