VOA标准英语2010年-Call to Exclude Top Iraqi Sunni Leader

The ruling to exclude Sunni politician Salah al-Mutlak from the election, issued by parliament's Accountability and Justice Committee, could derail weeks of patient effort to insure the partication of all parties in the polling.

Edward Yeranian | Cairo 09 January 2010

Salah al-Mutlak (L) is flanked by supporters at a news conference in Baghdad, 08 Jan 2010

A group of top Iraqi Sunni-Arab political leaders are protesting the preliminary decision by an Iraqi parliamentary committee to exclude Sunni leader Salah al-Mutlak from participating in March parliamentary elections. More than a dozen political parties could also be excluded from the elections for alleged¹ ties to former leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. 

A political row between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs is brewing² in Iraq just weeks before anticipated parliamentary elections in March. The ruling to exclude Sunni politician Salah al-Mutlak from the election, issued by parliament's Accountability and Justice Committee, could derail weeks of patient effort to insure the partication of all parties in the polling.

Saturday, a coalition³ of top, mostly Sunni, Iraqi political leaders, including Vice⁴ President Tareq al-Hashemi, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and al-Mutlak denounced the committee's ruling. Coalition spokesman Haidar al-Mulla insists the ruling is legally null and void:

Our leaders, he says, declare that they don't recognize the legality of the doings of [this committee], that we won't cooperate with [it], and that we affirm that democracy is the only choice for the Iraqi people. What this committee has proposed, he argues, will damage the political and electoral processes, and our group is demanding that the work of this committee be frozen, because it harms national reconciliation⁵ and the democratic process.

The final decision to ban al-Mutlak and more than a dozen other Iraqi political parties from the March election for alleged relations with the banned Baath party, does not, however, belong to parliament's Justice and Accountability committee, but to Iraq's High Electoral Commission.

Judge Qassim al-Aboudi of the High Electoral Commission says that he still has not received the final report of the Justice and Accountability committee, once charged with purging⁶ the Baath Party from all walks of life.

The committee's chairman, Falah Shansal, is allied⁷ to pro-Iranian cleric Moqtada Sadr. Several political leaders accuse him of bowing to the wishes of Iran in the call to ban al-Mutlak, and linked his declaration to the Thursday visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Muttaqi to Baghdad.

Selim al-Jabbouri of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a top Sunni political leader, says that Mr. Shansal's committee has no right to make such a ruling, since it has no legal existence in the first place.

He says that despite all the publicity⁸ that this decision has gotten, the organization that issued it had no right to make it in the first place, since it's very existence is illegal. The original [de-ba'athification] committee, he insists, was dissolved, and its successor was never approved by parliament. It's stunning⁹, he says, that such a committee with no legal existence can make such momentous¹⁰ decisions. In any case, he argues, it's a matter for the courts to decide and no one party has the authority to exclude another from the elections…

Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdal Mehdi, in an attempt to calm the situation, declared, after a visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani at his home in Najaf, that everyone should stop getting excited, since no final decisions have been made, yet.

He insists that the matter is still up in the air and that no official [decision was made], so it would be a mistake for Mr. al-Mutlak to take a stand on the matter just yet. No one, for that matter, he stresses, should pronounce on the subject now until we see the full ramifications¹¹ of the issue, which is to say, who is making the decision, which committee, what's the ruling of the courts, and what's the legality of any decision. That way, he insists, we can weigh everything properly.

Sunni political leaders, including Mr. al-Mutlak, complain that a ruling to exclude him from the political process stems from his growing popularity and his recent alliance with former moderate Shi'ite Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. That alliance, he argues, frightens the ruling Shi'ite coalition under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

1 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

2 brewing   

n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• It was obvious that a big storm was brewing up. 很显然，一场暴风雨正在酝酿中。
• She set about brewing some herb tea. 她动手泡一些药茶。

3 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

4 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

5 reconciliation   

n.和解，和谐，一致

参考例句：

• He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
• Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。

6 purging   

清洗； 清除； 净化； 洗炉

参考例句：

• You learned the dry-mouthed, fear-purged, purging ecstasy of battle. 你体会到战斗中那种使人嘴巴发干的，战胜了恐惧并排除其他杂念的狂喜。
• Purging databases, configuring, and making other exceptional requests might fall into this category. 比如清空数据库、配置，以及其他特别的请求等都属于这个类别。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

7 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

8 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

9 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

10 momentous   

adj.重要的，重大的

参考例句：

• I am deeply honoured to be invited to this momentous occasion.能应邀出席如此重要的场合，我深感荣幸。
• The momentous news was that war had begun.重大的新闻是战争已经开始。

11 ramifications   

n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These changes are bound to have widespread social ramifications. 这些变化注定会造成许多难以预料的社会后果。
• What are the ramifications of our decision to join the union? 我们决定加入工会会引起哪些后果呢？ 来自《简明英汉词典》