Baghdad, March 31 (IANS) Avoiding repercussions of their move on the country’s political process, the commissioners of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) Sunday withdrew their mass resignation.
“The commissioners of the electoral commission decided to retreat from their former resignation decision in response to official, local and international calls they received,” Xinhua quoted Sarbast Mustafa, head of commissioners board, as saying.
Speaking during a joint press conference with UN envoy to Iraq Nickolay Mladenov at the IHEC headquarters in Baghdad Green Zone, he said: “We did not and will not be the reason behind destroying the security situation and the political process in Iraq.”
The campaigning will be launched April 1, stressing that the it must focus on “the political programmes of the political blocs not defaming others”, he said.
On Tuesday the IHEC commissioners submitted their resignations collectively to protest the political pressures on their work due to the conflict among political parties.
They said that big pressure has been practiced on their commission by a dispute between the legislative and the judiciary authorities, as both issued conflicting decisions interpreting articles of the elections law with regard to conditions of banning candidates from participating in the April 30 parliamentary elections.