Barred candidates allowed to stand, INA’s emergency meeting … more update

While Ahmad Al-Chalabi headed to met Tal­a­bani behind closed doors, INA released a state­ment (after the emer­gency meet­ing) of two points: 1) con­demns the U.S. role and inter­ven­tion in the Iraqi affairs, but we wel­come any advise offered by any side. 2) The Appeals Court task is lim­ited to check the com­pat­i­bil­ity of JAC deci­sions with the law.

Video clip on Al-Fayha TV, Al-Lami said that if IHEC imple­mented the Appeals-Court’s deci­sion, then we [JAC] have the right to take IHEC to Fed­eral Court because it is a vio­la­tion to its [IHEC] own Arti­cle 6.

This is Just reported from Bagh­dad — Emer­gency meet­ing held few min­utes ago by INA lead­ers to dis­cuss the Appeal Court deci­sion — Atten­dees are: Falih Al-Fayad, Hamam Hamoudi, Ahmad Al-Chalabi and Has­san Sham­mari, Naseer Al-Chaderchi and Sharif Ali Bin Al Hus­sein and other lower ranked members.

In a “sud­den” deci­sion, the Appeals Court reversed JAC deci­sion of the exclu­sion Ba’ath linked politi­cians and to be reviewed after the elec­tion (as Joe Biden pro­posed). Until now the appeal excluded those who are already barred from par­tic­i­pa­tion in the elec­tion and intro­duced their replace­ments, but I expect there will be dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions to the reverse decision.

Allawi’s Al-Iraqiya List on Aljazeera accused IHEC spokes­woman Hamidiyya Al-Husseini of “play­ing with words”, say­ing that the Appeals Court is very clear; “can­cel the JAC deci­sion” but Al-Husseini said that the barred politi­cians are allowed to par­tic­i­pate in the election.

Head of JAC Ali Al-Lami already rejected the Appeal Court deci­sion say­ing that the Appeal Court deci­sion is not bind­ing. He added that this deci­sion con­tra­dicts Arti­cle 135, Arti­cle 132 and Arti­cle VII of the Iraqi Constitution.

Still under shock, not many reac­tions yet, but Al-Lami and other sec­tar­ian web­sites con­sid­ered this deci­sion is dic­tated by the U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and it is a U.S. inter­fer­ence in the Iraqi inter­nal affairs.

Bad tim­ing for the U.S. Assis­tant Sec­re­tary Philip J. Crow­ley to say that the Ba’athists are part of the polit­i­cal process, INA, Al-Lami and other sec­tar­ian fig­ures are already started to link the above with the today’s AC deci­sion to argue that the U.S. is prepar­ing for the return of the Ba’ath Party to power.

Other INA MPs are try­ing to “widen” the cir­cule of the “plot” to include Al-Hashemi say­ing that the rea­son behind his visit to the U.S. is to can­cel JAC decision.