PM warns of Baathists’ infiltration through election

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned on Sunday of the “Baathists’ infiltration into the political process through elections,” pledging that they “will never rule Iraq again.” “We are about to have parliamentary elections so don’t let this democratic course serve as an outlet for the advocates of evil and doom,” Maliki said during a speech he delivered on the occasion of the Baghdad Day celebrations. He said that citizens’ awareness about elections “won’t be less important than the role played by security forces in the face of terrorism in Iraq”. The Iraqi premier said the Baathists will not even be partners in the political process in the country, resembling Baathists’ “seizure of power from 1968 until 2003” to the “Moguls’ invasion that swept Iraq”. He said that those “Baathists, advocates of murder, terrorism and sectarianism, want to return to rule the country once again even if the cost was the nation’s havoc”. AmR (P)/SR 1