Changing Islamists’ slogans – realizing citizen’s need or failure to achieve them?

Iraq-Elections-Feature BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Islamic candidates have changed their slogans in the recent elections; promising to provide security, using pictures of elegant and smiling candidates instead of religious slogans, serve the country and provide services instead of focusing on the sect. “All Islamic and secular blocs use the same promises ranging from providing services and security to job opportunities, but their speech turns sectarian as soon as they reach the provincial council seats,” Abu Ahmad, a citizen, said. “In the recent past, candidates from the Islamic blocs use religious slogans and pictures of top clerics, but now they use pictures of elegant candidates and promises to apply the law and eliminate unemployment,” he added. MP from the Kurdistan Alliance, Mahmoud Othman, said that changing Islamic slogans is a normal thing because of the failure of some Islamists to provide citizens with services when they raise Islamic slogans. “Some Islamic parties won the seat by using Islamic slogans, but they did not implement them, so they started to focus on programs close to reality,” Othman noted. Head of the Ummah party, Mithal al-Ulusi, described replacing religious slogans with slogans of service akin to a confession of failure. Karim al-Yaaqubi, lawmaker from the Fadhila party, attributes changing slogans to the decision of the Independent High Electoral Commission to prevent using religious slogans. Some political analysts believes that changing slogans came as some parties started to realize the Iraqi citizens’ needs. A professor at the Baghdad University, Aamer Hassan Fayad, described this as “a positive step” because it reflects the citizen’s needs. Another parliamentarian, Abbas al-Bayati, said that “Islamists did not give away their slogans and they will use them on the ground, but what caused them to use other slogans is the need for services in Iraq’s provinces.” More than 14,400 candidates stood for 440 seats in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provincial councils, which each appoint a governor and oversee finance and reconstruction, with a combined budget of 2.4 billion dollars. Voting in the three autonomous Kurdish provinces and oil-rich Kirkuk is expected later this year. SH (S)/SR 3