The electoral commission has decided to bar 500 candidates, yes 500, of the upcoming elections in march stating that they had links to the former Baathists ... surprise, surprise , most of those barred are Sunnis.
Among them the influential Saleh al-Mutlaq who is said to have allied himself with former PM Iyad Allawi (a shia) to have a broad based, non sectarian party ... unheard of in the new democratic Iraq where ethnicity and religious sects prevail over political programs and manifestos.
In 2004 and 2005 , the Sunnis were blamed for boycotting the elections and not wanting to participate in the new Iraq...
Now they want to participate but might very well be not allowed to do so in the name of debaathification ... a witch hunt put in place in 2003 by the then US czar in Iraq Paul Bremer, that was a decisive factor in sparking the violence that engulfed the country.
And while the US may anxiously be waiting for the upcoming elections so it can role out its combat troops, it also has to realize that the problems of the previous elections are the same of the next elections ... will the consequences be the same?
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