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Sunnis warn over Iraq's new Shiite alliance
[May 05, 2010]
BAGHDAD (AP)
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Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition and the conservative Shiite Iraqi National Alliance announced an electoral alliance Tuesday that leaves them just four seats shy of a ruling majority in the 325-member parliament. The alliance means Iraqiya, the bloc that won the most seats in the March 7 election with heavy Sunni backing, will likely be squeezed out of the new government - potentially leaving the Sunnis feeling angry and disenfranchised. Hamid al-Mutlaq, who won a parliament seat on the cross-sectarian and secular Iraqiya list, expressed his hope that the new Shiite alliance will extend a hand to other parties. But he suggested sectarian conflict could flare again if it did not. "The previous years of sectarian conflict took place between Iraqi families, among the people and even within the same neighborhood. We hope that this will never come to pass again," he warned. Al-Mutlaq is from Anbar, the predominantly Sunni province in Iraq's west that was once home to a powerful insurgency that fought the government and U.S. forces. Iraq's once-dominant Sunnis have been sidelined by Shiite-led governments since the 2003 U.S.-invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. The community threw its weight behind former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya list, which won 91 seats in the election. "We hope that this alliance between the State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance goes in this direction (away from sectarianism), we hope they give the winning bloc, Iraqiya list, their due and at the very least not frustrate the will of the Iraqi people in the elections," he said. Al-Mutlaq is a cousin to Saleh al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician who was banned from running by a Shiite-led committee tasked with vetting candidates for ties to Saddam Hussein's regime. The two Shiite groups are now deciding how they will choose a new prime minister. |
