Maliki won’t allow US meddling in election row

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vows not to allow the US to meddle in decision-making about the ban on election candidates with suspected links to the Saddam era’s Baath Party.

In January, Iraq’s Justice and Accountability Commission blacklisted some 511 candidates over connections with the outlawed Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The decision met with criticism from some politicians who accused the Baghdad government of trying to push Sunni figures off Iraq’s political stage.

The United States also expressed concerns over what it called a threat to Shia-Sunni reconciliation, sending Vice-President Joe Biden to Baghdad to talk with Maliki about the election row.

The election tension reached a fresh height this week when an appeals court overturned the ban on Wednesday and reinstated most of the blacklisted candidates.

The ruling, though denounced by the government as unconstitutional, was hailed by US Ambassador Christopher Hill who argued that through lifting the ban Iraq would hold “a credible election.”

The comments enraged officials in Baghdad, where Maliki said he would not let Hill go beyond his position as a diplomat and that his country must not bow to US pressure.

“We will not allow American Ambassador Christopher Hill to go beyond his diplomatic mission,” al-Maliki said late Thursday in a statement published on his political coalition’s website, adding that the ban on Baathists and their sympathizers must be implemented.

Iraqi election officials have asked Iraq’s highest judicial authority for a final ruling while Maliki has also called for a special parliamentary session on Sunday to discuss the decision of the country’s top court.

The Baath Party has been banned since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is blamed, alongside al-Qaeda, for much of the violence and bloodshed that came in the aftermath of the US invasion of the country in 2003.