Baghdad:
Saleh al-Mutlaq has never shied from controversy, sometimes relishing his plunge into the turbulence of Iraqi politics. But even al-Mutlaq, a disheveled former agronomist, seems taken aback at landing square center in a growing dispute that threatens to unleash turmoil ahead of Iraq's parliamentary elections in March.
A government commission moved this month to bar his candidacy, on grounds that he was promoting the Baath Party of former President Saddam Hussein. With the decision, al-Mutlaq, a leading Sunni politician, has emerged as an emblem of a process widely viewed as opaque and capricious. To supporters, he is a victim. To critics, he is a relic. For both, his future could say something about Iraq's fate.
The dispute and the furor it has unleashed have left him bewildered.
"Listen to what I say here. And here," al-Mutlaq said as he watched himself on television in his room at a hotel in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
"Do you think I look tired?" he asked with a bemused air. "Upset?"
Al-Mutlaq, 63, has a lot of questions these days. He has publicly questioned the evidence used to bar him from the vote. In unguarded moments, he has speculated that his own allies might have had a hand in the decision. And seven years after rising to prominence after the fall of Saddam's government, and just two months before an election that might have delivered him his greatest influence yet, he has wondered whether his political career may have taken an insurmountable step back.
"I don't know my friends from my enemies anymore," he confessed.
The dispute is not yet over. On Monday, Ali Faisal al-Lami, the head of the Accountability and Justice Commission, which has vetted the candidates, said it had decided to disqualify 511 individuals, all of whose names were forwarded to electoral officials.
Once the disqualifications are ratified, al-Mutlaq and the others will have three days to appeal. Lami, himself a candidate, suggested that al-Mutlaq's case, based on "records and confessions, quotes in Parliament and statements by himself," would not fare well.
Al-Mutlaq's story is a tale of the fall, rise and fall again of an unlikely standard-bearer of Sunni Muslim sentiment in postwar Iraq. To his supporters, he represents a current of opinion that has not yet been reintegrated into public life. His opponents see him as a demagogue, courting the substantial support of the outlawed Baath Party in Sunni regions.
"What is he going to gain from defending the Baath Party?" asked Wael Abdel Latif, a Shiite lawmaker who has supported his disqualification. "Anybody who talks about the Baath Party should be eliminated from the political process."
Or, as al-Lami put it Monday, "The evidence is ironclad."
Al-Mutlaq's own story is more ambiguous.
A former Baath Party member, al-Mutlaq was expelled from its ranks in 1977 after he insisted that five Shiite Muslim men from the city of Karbala should be guaranteed a fair trial on charges of plotting against a state. "That saddened me deeply," he said. "I believed in the Baath Party."
Al-Mutlaq, who has a doctorate in agronomy, then turned to farming with a former Baath Party member in Wasit province, east of Baghdad. Business was good until the day President Hussein showed up at the farm in the early 1980s.
The crop that season was corn and cotton, and Saddam was impressed enough to decide that the government would appropriate the land. There would be no compensation for the owners, al-Mutlaq said. Three days later, Saddam reconsidered, returned, and this time made al-Mutlaq and his partner a generous offer, he recalled.
"I think he felt that he wasn't being fair to us," al-Mutlaq said.
The story is one of many that make al-Mutlaq a complicated figure. He openly solicits the backing of Hussein's admirers and supporters and toes an Arab nationalist line that condemns Iran and the United States in the same breath. But he contends that although he prospered, his relations with Saddam were never good, souring years before he was expelled over what he said was his criticism.
Al-Mutlaq remains a fellow traveler of sorts, inciting his critics.
"I was proud of so many of the party's achievements in education, agriculture and industry," he said. "Iraq had the potential of becoming a developed country."
"But," he added, "mistakes were made."
After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, al-Mutlaq entered politics. He was named to the committee to draft the constitution. (He voted against it in the referendum, citing the provision that outlawed the Baath Party.) In the prelude to the 2005 elections, he made a decision that ran against prevailing Sunni sentiment, entering the campaign at the head of a coalition of secular Arab nationalists. They won 11 seats in Parliament.
His party did even better in last year's provincial elections. In the parliamentary vote this March, his secular coalition, which includes Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, was expected to pose one of the bigger challenges to the list of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.
That very prominence, he and others believe, may have prompted the ban.
"They feared my popularity, so they wanted to eliminate me," he said.
Who exactly "they" are remains a mystery. Critics have pointed fingers at al-Maliki, his Shiite rivals in the Iraqi National Alliance, Iran and Ahmad Chalabi, the former American ally who still has ambitions of leadership. The dispute runs the risk of further disenfranchising Sunni voters, a prospect that has deeply worried U.S. officials here.
"Iraq is heading toward a real crisis," said Dhafir al-Ani, a Sunni lawmaker who is allied with al-Mutlaq and is said to be among those on the lengthy disqualification list.
As the tension mounts, al-Mutlaq spends his days at the Rashid Hotel in the Green Zone, his second home. In the oddly clubby world of Iraqi politics, he has fielded calls from President Jalal Talabani, leading Shiite lawmakers and finally Allawi. (For three days after word came that he was being disqualified, Allawi did not call, al-Mutlaq said. On the fourth, Allawi did, but al-Mutlaq said he refused to take his call.)
Now he vows another plunge into the turbulence.
"I'm ready to fight until the end," he promised, with the slightest hint of hesitation.
A government commission moved this month to bar his candidacy, on grounds that he was promoting the Baath Party of former President Saddam Hussein. With the decision, al-Mutlaq, a leading Sunni politician, has emerged as an emblem of a process widely viewed as opaque and capricious. To supporters, he is a victim. To critics, he is a relic. For both, his future could say something about Iraq's fate.
The dispute and the furor it has unleashed have left him bewildered.
"Listen to what I say here. And here," al-Mutlaq said as he watched himself on television in his room at a hotel in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
"Do you think I look tired?" he asked with a bemused air. "Upset?"
Al-Mutlaq, 63, has a lot of questions these days. He has publicly questioned the evidence used to bar him from the vote. In unguarded moments, he has speculated that his own allies might have had a hand in the decision. And seven years after rising to prominence after the fall of Saddam's government, and just two months before an election that might have delivered him his greatest influence yet, he has wondered whether his political career may have taken an insurmountable step back.
"I don't know my friends from my enemies anymore," he confessed.
The dispute is not yet over. On Monday, Ali Faisal al-Lami, the head of the Accountability and Justice Commission, which has vetted the candidates, said it had decided to disqualify 511 individuals, all of whose names were forwarded to electoral officials.
Once the disqualifications are ratified, al-Mutlaq and the others will have three days to appeal. Lami, himself a candidate, suggested that al-Mutlaq's case, based on "records and confessions, quotes in Parliament and statements by himself," would not fare well.
Al-Mutlaq's story is a tale of the fall, rise and fall again of an unlikely standard-bearer of Sunni Muslim sentiment in postwar Iraq. To his supporters, he represents a current of opinion that has not yet been reintegrated into public life. His opponents see him as a demagogue, courting the substantial support of the outlawed Baath Party in Sunni regions.
"What is he going to gain from defending the Baath Party?" asked Wael Abdel Latif, a Shiite lawmaker who has supported his disqualification. "Anybody who talks about the Baath Party should be eliminated from the political process."
Or, as al-Lami put it Monday, "The evidence is ironclad."
Al-Mutlaq's own story is more ambiguous.
A former Baath Party member, al-Mutlaq was expelled from its ranks in 1977 after he insisted that five Shiite Muslim men from the city of Karbala should be guaranteed a fair trial on charges of plotting against a state. "That saddened me deeply," he said. "I believed in the Baath Party."
Al-Mutlaq, who has a doctorate in agronomy, then turned to farming with a former Baath Party member in Wasit province, east of Baghdad. Business was good until the day President Hussein showed up at the farm in the early 1980s.
The crop that season was corn and cotton, and Saddam was impressed enough to decide that the government would appropriate the land. There would be no compensation for the owners, al-Mutlaq said. Three days later, Saddam reconsidered, returned, and this time made al-Mutlaq and his partner a generous offer, he recalled.
"I think he felt that he wasn't being fair to us," al-Mutlaq said.
The story is one of many that make al-Mutlaq a complicated figure. He openly solicits the backing of Hussein's admirers and supporters and toes an Arab nationalist line that condemns Iran and the United States in the same breath. But he contends that although he prospered, his relations with Saddam were never good, souring years before he was expelled over what he said was his criticism.
Al-Mutlaq remains a fellow traveler of sorts, inciting his critics.
"I was proud of so many of the party's achievements in education, agriculture and industry," he said. "Iraq had the potential of becoming a developed country."
"But," he added, "mistakes were made."
After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, al-Mutlaq entered politics. He was named to the committee to draft the constitution. (He voted against it in the referendum, citing the provision that outlawed the Baath Party.) In the prelude to the 2005 elections, he made a decision that ran against prevailing Sunni sentiment, entering the campaign at the head of a coalition of secular Arab nationalists. They won 11 seats in Parliament.
His party did even better in last year's provincial elections. In the parliamentary vote this March, his secular coalition, which includes Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, was expected to pose one of the bigger challenges to the list of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.
That very prominence, he and others believe, may have prompted the ban.
"They feared my popularity, so they wanted to eliminate me," he said.
Who exactly "they" are remains a mystery. Critics have pointed fingers at al-Maliki, his Shiite rivals in the Iraqi National Alliance, Iran and Ahmad Chalabi, the former American ally who still has ambitions of leadership. The dispute runs the risk of further disenfranchising Sunni voters, a prospect that has deeply worried U.S. officials here.
"Iraq is heading toward a real crisis," said Dhafir al-Ani, a Sunni lawmaker who is allied with al-Mutlaq and is said to be among those on the lengthy disqualification list.
As the tension mounts, al-Mutlaq spends his days at the Rashid Hotel in the Green Zone, his second home. In the oddly clubby world of Iraqi politics, he has fielded calls from President Jalal Talabani, leading Shiite lawmakers and finally Allawi. (For three days after word came that he was being disqualified, Allawi did not call, al-Mutlaq said. On the fourth, Allawi did, but al-Mutlaq said he refused to take his call.)
Now he vows another plunge into the turbulence.
"I'm ready to fight until the end," he promised, with the slightest hint of hesitation.
