 |
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“How
do you guarantee that electors can go to vote without risking
their lives?” Al-Juburi wondered. (AFP)
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BAGHDAD,
December 6 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Representatives
of several Iraqi parties and leading political figures renewed their
call for a six-month delay of the general elections, scheduled for
January 30, over the increasing deteriorating security conditions in
the war-torn country
.
Meeting
Sunday, December 5, under the banner "Flawed Elections:
Disputed Results", more than 200 Iraqi politicians and party
officials warned that if the polls went ahead in the current climate
of violence the results could be contested, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
“The
deterioration in security conditions in numerous provinces means we
should postpone them,” Tareq Al-Hashemi, Secretary General of the
Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, told the gathering.
Seventeen
Iraqi parties, including interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's National
Accord, pressed Friday, November 27, for a six-month delay of the vote
to allow for an improvement of the security conditions in the country.
However,
the proposal was immediately ruled out especially after top
Shiite
scholars threatened
to withhold support for the interim government.
Violence
Upsurge
The
Iraqi party officials and politicians said Sunday the latest upsurge
in violence would sure cast a grim show on the possibility of holding
fair and free elections.
Al-Hashemi
insisted, however, that such a delay “does not mean bowing to the
threats” of those behind the attacks.
Mishan
Al-Juburi of the Sunni Freedom and Reconciliation bloc agreed.
“How
do you guarantee that electors can go to vote without risking their
lives?” Al-Juburi asked.
But
in Washington, interim President Ghazi Al-Yawar argued otherwise.
He
insisted that elections would go ahead as planned next month despite
the spiraling violence.
“After
reviewing the situation, I think the worst thing to do is to postpone
elections. This will give a tactical victory to the insurgents, to the
forces of darkness,” Al-Yawar said.
Unabated
attacks and bombings claimed the lives of at least 41 Iraqis Sunday
and Saturday.
On
Friday, December 3,
twenty
six people were
killed in two separate attacks against police stations in Baghdad.
UN
Iraqi envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that holding the Iraqi elections
would be impossible unless “first and foremost
security
improves.”
“If
the poll took place only in secure areas of Iraq it would exclude the
Sunni minority, who live in extremely tense areas such as Fallujah and
Samarra,” he told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad
Saturday.
More
than 47 groups have threatened
to
boycott the
vote, charging that any poll should only be held after the withdrawal
of foreign troops, and to protest onslaughts on Sunni cities.
The
Association of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni religious authority
in Iraq, also called for a boycott of the elections over the
American offensive on the western Baghdad city of Fallujah.
