Baghdad : Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq stressed the necessity of parliamentary election in the country to get out of the current crisis situation, a media report said Tuesday.
“If Iraqis go to vote, Iraq will change and if they don’t, the country will stay as it is now and will worsen. The future of Iraq solely depends on these elections,” al-Mutlaq told Xinhua.
Mutlaq leads the secular Iraqiya coalition, which consists of the National Iraqi Dialogue Front and eight other entities and has many supporters in Sunni areas.
Mutlaq said every Iraqi should go to the voting centres to cast their ballots so that a democratic country can be built and the issue of sectarian divisions solved after the election.
“Our country needs politicians and political blocs who believe in the unity of Iraq and their society, those who raise the national identity and the Arab identity above all other identities, because the sectarian identities will tear up the country,” al-Mutlaq said.
According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, more than 8,800 Iraqis were killed in 2013, the highest death toll in years.
Iraq’s present prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who leads the mainly Shiite State of Law Coalition, is seeking a third term in office.
The 2014 general elections are the first since the withdrawal of the US military forces from Iraq.
The last Iraqi general elections were held in 2010.