A couple of hundred candidates have been provisionally struck from the lists by the de-Baathification committee. This is a lower percentage than in the parliamentary elections of 2010, though a cursory reading of omitted candidates suggests it is once more the Sunni-majority governorates and the secular parties that are taking the heaviest toll. They still have the possibility to appeal the decisions individually, and a final roll of last-minute approved candidates will be published by IHEC.
All in all, the candidate lists suggest a political atmosphere that is looking more sectarian than in 2009, with the Shiite parties largely giving up the fight for Sunni votes. To what extent Iraqiyya will actually succeed in its nationally oriented strategy, remains to be seen as well. Nonetheless, given Iraq’s increasingly homogeneous sectarian population patterns, the majority of these contests will be of an intra-sectarian nature. To some extent, the electorate will give their verdict on four years of rule by Maliki allies; these figures are now at the top of the State of Law list in their respective areas, including in places like Basra and Baghdad. The concomitant sectarian infighting can perhaps in itself have some positive impact on an Iraqi political situation that seems stalemated internally and under severe pressures from regional dynamics, above all in Syria.
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