Shiites: If Sunnis win, we will overthrow them

[phk]

AGHDAD (AFP) - Campaigning for
Iraq's general elections has ended with the dominant religious Shiite alliance lashing out against former
Saddam Hussein followers, their main secular rival.
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Two days before 15.5 million voters are to elect a full four-year legislature, a blunt warning came on Tuesday from the headquarters of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the predominant Shiite party.

"If Baathists regain power, we will take up arms against them just as we did against Saddam Hussein," warned Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Organisation, SCIRI's former armed wing that many say still wields weapons.

His comment was aimed at Iyad Allawi, a former member of Saddam's ruling Baath party who later broke with movement and plotted a failed
CIA-backed coup against the then dictator.

The media savvy strongman is seen as the candidate most likely to draw off Shiite votes from the SCIRI-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the main religious Shiite sectarian choice in Thursday's election.

Allawi, once subject to an assassination attempt blamed on Saddam, is nonetheless a proponent of rolling back Iraq's programme of de-Baathification which he argues weakens institutions so long dominated by the former regime.

Making a last campaign stab, the head of the UIA list Abdel Aziz al-Hakim warned again against possible fraud, while meeting with tribal chiefs from the Shiite south.

The UIA swept elections for a transitional assembly in January, but is wary of Allawi's coalition Iraqi National List (INL) which is tough on security and appeals to secular Shiites, Sunnis and communists in urban areas.

Allawi, a secular Shiite came a distant third in the initial poll, but could draw voters this time who are dissatisfied with the UIA-dominated government's failure to quell chronic insurgent violence.

Parliament speaker Hajim al-Hasani, a Sunni who is running alongside Allawi, issued a solemn call for Iraqis to vote despite threats of violence from insurgents and Islamic extremists.

"You have an historic opportunity to redress errors committed against your country and create a radiant future by choosing a government that represents all Iraqis," he said in a statement.

Hasani urged electors to back candidates "that rise above political and religious affiliations."

The statements marked the end of a campaign marred by assassinations, the latest on Tuesday when Sunni candidate Mizher al-Dulaimi was shot dead in the troubled western city of Ramadi.

Allawi was himself mobbed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, a UIA stronghold, where he was pelted with stones and shoes, the latter a particularly disparaging Arab insult.

The UIA and INL have been the focus of the most bitter campaigning, while Sunni and Kurdish groups opted for less aggressive appeals to voters, many of whom are expected to cast their ballots along ethnic or sectarian lines.

The Kurdish Alliance, which includes the two biggest political groups in Iraqi Kurdistan and which won 75 seats in the outgoing 275-member assembly, has concentrated its campaign in three autonomous northern provinces.

While posters for other parties are present in the region, televised debates focus on Kurdish campaign platforms, since the smaller Kurdish Islamic Union decided to run on its own.