[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq has officially kicked off the election season ahead of the March nationwide vote.Campaign posters were plastered across Baghdad and other cities on Friday, urging people to the polls. In Basra, one poster read: "Your city needs someone who knows what Basra needs."
But in a move likely to raise tensions between the Shiite-led government and Sunnis who claim they are politically undermined, an Iraqi panel on Thursday barred two prominent Sunni politicians from running in the March 7 election.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that judges would resolve a simmering row over who can stand in the elections before official campaigning starts on Feb. 12.
"Evidence"
The back-and-forth over a decision to blacklist hundreds of candidates from the March 7 vote because of ties to Saddam Hussein's former Baathist regime has threatened to mar the balloting process, which U.S. officials hope could be a milestone in reconciliation among Iraq's rival religious groups.
Sunni lawmakers Saleh al-Mutlaq and Dhafir al-Ani, who are members of Iraq's parliament, were disqualified from the vote because of "overwhelming" evidence of their Baathist loyalty, according to the panel.
Al-Mutlaq and al-Ani are the most prominent Sunni lawmakers to be disqualified. Their initial rejection weeks ago was seen by many Iraqis as proof of a campaign against Sunnis, even though many Shiites also are on the blacklist.
Al-Mutlaq, a fierce critic of Shiite Prime Minister Maliki, has acknowledged he was a Baathist until the late 1970s but quit the party.
Al-Ani took the helm of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament after its moderate leader Harith al-Obeidi was assassinated in June 2009. He said he had not yet been officially informed about the decision but said it was politically motivated and called it "a gift to the Iranian government" -- a jab accusing the panel of being influenced by Tehran's Shiite leadership.
The judicial panel issued the order as part of its review of 177 candidates who have appealed a decision to exclude them from the ballot. More than 200 other candidates have either failed to appeal or were replaced by with other hopefuls by their party alliances.