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Iraq’s Cabinet has approved a draft law pertaining to the provincial elections slated for Oct. 1, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said at an April 13 press briefing. The same day, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the draft law categorically states that only those parties that do not maintain illegal militias will be allowed to participate in the polls. Al-Dabbagh said Iraq’s legislature has 90 days to approve the law.
This new law has two purposes. First, it is meant to limit the ability of radical Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement to perform in the elections. Secondly, and more importantly, it is designed to check the extent to which Sunnis can be empowered politically and gain a share in the security system. Although this new legislation might have some success in reaching its first objective, it is bound to only open up a can of worms as far as the Sunnis are concerned.
Iraq’s Sunnis are the only communal group which still has a multitude of militias (tribal fighters and nationalist insurgents) operating outside the system. Al-Sadr has his Mehdi Army, of course, but after the Basra operation the Mehdi Army is largely under lock and key and is in the process of becoming a political movement. The main Shiite group, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), had a significant portion of its militiamen from the Badr Brigades absorbed into the state security apparatuses a few years ago. The group eventually transformed into a political organization called the Badr Organization. The Kurdish peshmergas have also been converted into a security force for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as al-Maliki formally recognized during a joint press conference with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani on April 12.
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