A top Sunni lawmaker who just last week pulled his party out of Iraq's upcoming election backtracked Thursday, ending any possibility that minority Sunnis would boycott the crucial March 7 vote. Saleh Al-Mutlaq's announcement that his National Dialogue Front would contest the race was the latest twist in an ongoing political saga that has gripped the Iraqi political establishment for weeks. A Sunni boycott could have called the vote's legitimacy into question, throwing the country into turmoil as US forces prepare to withdraw. Al-Mutlaq called on all Iraqis to participate in the election, which will determine who will lead the country as US forces draw down. “After so many calls from our supporters, the Iraqi people, not to give others a chance to spoil our project, your brothers in the National Dialogue Front have decided to actively participate ... in the upcoming elections,” Al-Mutlaq told a news conference. Al-Mutlaq had withdrawn his party from the race just last Saturday because he had been banned from running by a committee vetting candidates for ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath party. He says he quit the Baath party in the 1970s. It was unclear how Al-Mutlaq's reversal would affect the vote or how much weight his initial decision to pull his party out of the race even had. The ballots had already been printed out and mailed to polling stations, and Al-Mutlaq had never clarified what would happen to votes cast for his candidates.
