Source: AFP

BAGHDAD — Iraq's pro-Western former prime minister Iyad Allawi has denounced a commission that barred candidates allegedly linked to Saddam Hussein from elections before their disputed reinstatement on appeal.

"The integrity and justice committee is actually a secret police," Iyad Allawi, who last month unveiled a broad secular alliance of candidates to contest the war-torn country's March 7 election, told AFP in an interview.

"We don't know who these members are and how they have been appointed, or how it is financed. We know the main culprits," he said.

The integrity and accountability committee (IAC) compiled a blacklist in mid-January of 511 candidates -- accused of membership of Saddam's outlawed Baath party -- for the election, provoking anger from Sunnis and secularists.



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Iraq law demands purge of Baathists, Chalabi says
Thu Jan 28, 2010 6:34pm IST

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Iraqi panel that vetoed more than 500 election candidates was only doing its job of purging former Baathists from politics, not targeting Sunni Muslims or any other group, its chairman Ahmed Chalabi said on Thursday.

The commission's move this month upset some Sunnis, whose minority community dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein's rule, raising tensions before the March 7 parliamentary poll.

In fact, more Shi'ite Muslims than Sunnis appeared on a list of 511 barred candidates and around 50 names were later removed because they were found to have been wrongly included.

"I didn't make the law, the commission didn't make the law. We are implementing the law," Chalabi told Reuters in Beirut, denying any political interference in winnowing the candidates.

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