Allawi battles for his share of Iraqi votes
Ayad Allawi expressed pessimism toward the upcoming Iraqi elections and called on Iran to contribute to ensuring security in Iraq.
Ayad Allawi, whose Iraq National Movement (“Iraqiyya”) won the most votes in the 2010 Iraqi parliamentary elections, won’t be able to repeat that victory this time.
Yet he is still a presence in the 2014 elections, and is one of the few Iraqi politicians capable of freely moving across the sectarian barriers and animosity which characterizes most Iraqi politicians, winning a large bloc of Sunni votes in 2010.
Allawi is focusing on the Shiite arena again after he abandoned the Iraqiya List’s greater Sunni clout following some splits within his coalition: The Mutahidoun bloc, led by parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, the al-Arabiya bloc, led by Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, the al-Iraqiya al-Bayda, al-Iraqiya al-Horra and the Hall (solution) list are no longer part of his coalition.
Allawi told Al-Monitor that he was not optimistic about the current elections, and that "39 female and male candidates from the Al-Wataniya coalition have been illegally and unjustifiably excluded from their positions in ministries or provincial councils.”
