BAGHDAD, February 16 (IslamOnline.net) – Iraqi national currents that boycotted the controversial polls, comprising Sunni and Shiite powers, were quick to declare their terms for joining the political process, amid repeated announcements from powers that took part in the elections for including all Iraqi fronts in writing down the constitution.

Despite the announcements’ lacking of any concrete steps so far, the anti-occupation powers – notably the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) and firebrand Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's group – set their own conditions for boarding on the political train should they be invited to do so.

“The AMS has not received any official invitation from the winning parties (in the Jan 30 elections) on engaging in a dialogue to probe means of achieving national reconciliation in Iraq or taking part in drafting the new constitution,” AMS spokesman, Mothana Harith Al-Dari, declared Tuesday, February 15.

He, however, stressed that the AMS and other anti-occupation parties are not waiting to receive such invitation from any party to engage in such a dialogue.

“We have been calling for achieving a national reconciliation, a call that we are abided by before the Iraqi people, not before the parties that took part in the polls that lacked legitimacy.”

The election results left the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) with 132 seats of the 275-member Transitional National Assembly.

The Kurdish ticket, grouping the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), came second with 71 seats and interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s list ranked third with a feeble 13.8% of votes, translated into 38 seats.

The majority of Sunnis did not cast ballot in the polls, citing lack of transparency and fair play under the US occupation.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni religious authority in Iraq, championed the call for election boycott.

The Islamic Party of Iraq, the main Sunni political party, had quit the election race also over aggravating insecurity.

In a statement Tuesday, election-boycotting Iraqi groups put forth their own conditions for engaging in dialogue on Iraq’s future and taking part in drafting the new constitution.

“A national reconciliation in Iraq and drafting a new constitution can’t be achieved unless a range of conditions are met, atop of which is setting an internationally-guaranteed timetable on the withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq,” according to a statement read out by Sobhi Abdul Hamid, the secretary general of the Arab National Party in Iraq Tuesday.

Respected scholar, Harith Al-Dari, the Secretary General of AMS, was sitting next to Abdul Hamid in the press conference.

The statement also stressed elections lacked legitimacy as it was held according to the interim administration law, boycotted by most of the Iraqi people, and was rigged off.

“The new government has no right to sign any agreement that harms Iraq’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and wealth.”

The statement also urged to endorse the right of Iraqis to resist the US occupation forces in Iraq and acknowledge the Iraqi resistance.

It also demanded a cancellation of the ethnic share principle adopted for the political and legislative representation and respect of citizenship and equality rights for all Iraqis.

The statement, further, hit out at the “terrorist acts” targeting innocent Iraqis and worship places in the violence-scarred country.

It pressed for releasing all Iraqi detainees in the US-administrated jails, stopping the crackdown operations and human rights violations as well as rebuilding the devastated Iraqi cities and compensating their inhabitants.

Draji said the Sadr group has not received any official invitation to take part in the political process.

Sheikh Abdel Hadi Al-Draji, Sadr representative, for his part, stressed that the Sadr group has not received any official invitation to take part in the political process.

He noted that holding dialogue on the national reconciliation and taking part in drafting the constitution would be possible only when the parties that took part in the polls accept the document signed by the anti-US occupation groups.

The interim assembly will elect a president and two deputies, who in turn will have to unanimously pick a prime minister.

The new premier will then be tasked with choosing a cabinet that has to be approved by a majority in parliament.

The statement was signed by a host of Iraqi groups, topped by the Association of Muslim Scholars, Sadr group, the Shiite Khaleseya current, the Nasserite Party, the Iraqi Communist Party, and the Kirkuk Arab group.