Iraq Islamic party will not run in upcoming elections

The Iraqi Islamic Party announced yesterday that it will not run in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May in order to “avoid further divisions within the Sunni forces”.

The decision came after the dissolution of the coalition of national forces which included a majority of Sunni parties in the country.

“The party has decided not to participate in the parliamentary elections to allow our members to run independently according to their assessment of their electoral audience,” party Secretary-General Ayad Samarrai said.

Al-Samarrai added that the party made its decision after seeing that all the political coalitions that were formed did not have a common future vision or a clear programme.

Iraq: 3 major Sunni provinces form alliance to run in elections

“We entered into an important alliance with the Iraqi National Forces Alliance to be an electoral force that has a clear programme, but influential forces within the coalition insisted on running independently and led to the weakening of the general situation,” he added.