A prominent scholar and US ally is weighing whether to urge fellow Sunnis to boycott upcoming elections in protest of the government's ballot purge of hundreds of candidates suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's regime. Such a call by Ahmed Abu Risha risks derailing Obama administration hopes that the March 7 parliamentary elections will bring stronger reconciliation between Iraq's majority Shiites and minority Sunnis who want to reclaim more political power. It would also set back the clock on Iraqi politics - using the same protest tactic that Sunnis used in 2005 parliament voting that left them with only a few lawmakers and a weakened voice in key debates. In an interview with the AP, Abu Risha acknowledged that a boycott could throw Iraq into disarray. But the Awakening Council leader said the candidate blacklist likely will result in a low turnout among voters in Anbar, the mostly Sunni province that covers most of Iraq's western desert. “They will not care about of the election - they will ignore it, maybe, if these decisions stand,” Abu Risha said in an interview this week at his sprawling compound just outside Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. “I will make my decision later about encouraging people to go to vote or not,” he added. Abu Risha leads the Anbar province Awakening Council, a Sunni tribal militia that joined the US-led fight against insurgents in 2006. Iraq's Shiite-led government has banned about 450 candidates with suspected links to Saddam's now
