Parliamentary election campaign starts in Iraq

Baghdad - Election campaigns were launched in Iraq Friday by 6,172 candidates competing in the country's parliamentary election, set for March 7. Campaign posters and banners were seen across the different provinces from the early hours of Friday, while hundreds of people were walking in the streets distributing cards introducing the different candidates vying for the 325 seats in parliament.

Media outlets affiliated to major parties started advertising their party's electoral programs and displaying pictures of candidates, while newspapers are expected to publish detailed articles on the progress of candidates.

Campaigning will continue until March 5, in one of the shortest election campaigns since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion in 2003.

The start of the campaigning was postponed about a week by the electoral commission to allow for more time to settle the question of whether a group of candidates who had been barred from the election should be allowed to run.

Last month, some 500 candidates were initially blocked from participating in the coming polls because of their alleged connections to the former ruling Baath Party. The judicial electoral commission canceled the ban and described it as "illegal and unconstitutional."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/308871,parliamentary-election-campaign-starts-in-iraq.html.