Iraq political parties organize

By Andrew Quinn

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s major political parties
finalized alliances on Saturday ahead of December 15 polls that
will select the first full four-year parliament since the 2003
ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs were among more than
200 parties and coalitions that completed registration for the
election, which Washington hopes will cement Iraqi democracy
and open the way for an eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops.

After a week which saw the United States mark the 2,000th
U.S. military fatality in Iraq, U.S. forces announced the
deaths of three more soldiers, bringing the total American
death toll since the U.S.-led invasion to at least 2,013.

The military also said a U.S. soldier had shot dead the
driver of a truck used in Monday’s bombing of a Baghdad hotel
complex, stopping the vehicle from getting closer to the
building and preventing an even bigger disaster.

Election officials said on Saturday that 21 coalitions and
230 political parties and entities registered for the December
election by Friday’s deadline, including a significant number
of Sunni Arab groups who boycotted the last election in
January.

Five groups are likely to dominate the race: the Shi’ite
Islamist Alliance, the Kurdish bloc, at least two blocs of
Sunni Arab parties and a secular coalition unveiled on Saturday
by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Washington hopes the participation of Sunni parties will
bring more Sunnis into the political fold, although it remains
unclear how much sway Sunni party leaders have over militants
fighting the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

COMPLICATED BALLOTS

Under a new system of proportional representation, voters
in Iraq’s 18 provinces will see 18 different ballot papers.

“We are giving the voter a chance to elect people they know
so that people will get more involved in the candidate’s
program for his province,” Hussein Hindawi, the head of Iraq’s
election commission, told Reuters.

Some groups such the Kerbala Coalition may only field
candidates in their home bases, while others such as Allawi’s
list are expected to seek support across the country.

Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, unveiled a slate on Saturday
that included prominent Sunnis such as Vice-President Ghazi
al-Yawar, parliamentary speaker Hajem al-Hassani and Adnan
Pachachi.

“The first priority of our list is the national unity of
Iraq, which is the most important issue for the future,” Allawi
said on Saturday. “The second priority is securing, in deeds
not words, public services and security for the people.”

While many observers expect the December election to be
fought along ethnic and sectarian lines, growing
dissatisfaction with service delivery by the current Shi’ite-
and Kurdish-led government may also play an important role.

The most prominent Shi’ite faction, the United Alliance led
by Shi’ite Islamist parties, took more than half the 275 seats
in parliament in the January election.

“This coalition represents a big, wide and important
popular base within Iraqi people, so this coalition will form,
with God’s help, the biggest bloc in the coming parliament,”
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)
leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim told a news conference on Saturday.

But while it has largely reformed to contest the December
election, the United Alliance has lost several components,
including the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmed Chalabi, a
controversial politician who fell out of favor with Washington.

The barometer of the election may be the ethnically and
religiously mixed capital city, Baghdad, where the parties will
contest 59 of the 230 seats allocated to the provinces. Another
45 seats will be allocated according to national vote tallies
in a measure aimed at ensuring smaller parties’ representation.

MORE DEATHS

The U.S. military announced the deaths of three more
soldiers on Saturday: two killed by a roadside bomb in south
Baghdad and a third by a land mine in Baiji, 180 km (110 miles)
north of the capital.

Militants staged a dramatic attack last Monday, sending
explosives-laden vehicles ramming into the perimeter walls of
Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, the base for several Western media
organizations in the city.

The strike was televised around the world and killed at
least 15 people. But the U.S. military said on Saturday that
more deaths had been averted by the actions of a U.S. soldier
who killed the driver of the last truck before it could
detonate closer to the building.

A military news release said the bomb attack was
coordinated with small-arms fire and possible rocket-propelled
grenade attacks from accomplices, although it played down
suggestions that insurgents wanted to kidnap foreign
journalists.

“I don’t think capturing journalists was the goal,” it
quoted Capt. John Newman as saying. “They were just trying to
cause death and destruction, and get on the news.”

(Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons, Mariam Karouny,
Azeel Kami and Ahmed Rashid)