BAGHDAD - Iraq's top Sunni Muslim party said Monday it was withdrawing from Jan. 30 elections because relentless bloodshed would keep people from voting in the long dominant Sunni north and west.

"The Iraqi Islamic Party is withdrawing from the elections because we do not think the situation will improve in the next few weeks to give conditions for credible elections," party Secretary-General Tareq al-Hashimi said.

Persistent violence in Sunni Arab cities, most of which are under curfew, has raised fears that voters there will be too intimidated to cast their ballots, skewing the poll in favor of Iraq's 60-percent Shi'ite Muslim majority.

The Islamic Party's list of 275 candidates would still appear on ballot papers which were already being printed, a spokesman for Iraq's Electoral Commission told Reuters.

Farid Ayar said the Commission had received no formal request for withdrawal, but if it does, any votes cast for the Iraqi Islamic Party would be considered "invalid."

The leading mainstream Sunni religious party, along with at least 16 other Sunni and secular parties, had threatened to boycott the poll unless it was postponed by up to six months to ensure that voters across the country could take part.

But most, including the Islamic Party itself, later fielded lists of candidates for the poll to elect a 275-seat National Assembly that will draft a constitution and appoint a cabinet.

Iraq's long-oppressed Shi'ites are keen that the poll, expected to cement their political power after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, take place. The New York Times quoted unnamed U.S. officials Sunday saying Washington was considering giving Sunnis extra seats in parliament should Sunnis fail to vote, to avoid marginalizing the 20-percent minority that was dominant under Saddam.

One way of doing that might be to appoint legislators from those Sunni provinces where voting was severely disrupted.

The Electoral Commission dismissed those suggestions and the Islamic Party said such a scheme would be undemocratic.

"There cannot be comprehensive elections unless they include all of Iraq's provinces. These provinces cannot accept that... they have people appointed. This will not convince us or others," said Iraqi Islamic Party leader Mohsen Abdul Hamid.

The Iraqi Islamic Party is one of Iraq's older parties, set up in the 1960s with links to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

It was suppressed by Saddam, but was on the defunct Iraq Governing Council picked by Washington after the war, and has deputies in the 100-seat National Council set up in August.

The Islamic Party withdrew its one minister from Iraq's interim government to protest against last month's U.S. assault on the Sunni city of Falluja, once a rebel nerve center.

But Industry Minister Hajem al-Hassani, left the party and kept his post instead. Last month, U.S.-led forces detained a top party official who is deputy head of the National Assembly.

© Copyright 2004 Reuters Ltd

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