Former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi has denied receiving financial support from outside to finance his elections campaign.
[It was alleged in Iraq that he has received as much as $100 million for this purpose. Others have written that the contacts among Riyadh, Cairo, and Amman and the Ba'th leaders in their countries have intensified, with a view to providing strong support to the alliance between Allawi and secular Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlak.]
Allawi said that his books are open and can be inspected. He added that all contributions to his campaign are personal or were made entirely by Iraqi businessmen. He said that all Arab leaders are his friends but that he asked no one for financial help.
He said that the Ba'th party was essentially eliminated and its leaders are in exile, and that the threat of its return to power is being used by his opponents to frighten the electorate.
In any event, he alleged that the U.S. and representatives of the Iraqi government have been meeting regularly with the Ba'th Party, most recently in Istanbul, Turkey.
[One suspects that Al-Maliki is raising the Ba'th specter as an excuse to join the Iraqi National Alliance, which comprises the Shi'a political parties. During his visit to Baghdad last week, Iranian Majlis speaker Ali Larijani reportedly pressured Al-Maliki to rejoin the Shi'ite coalition, which won the majority of the seats in the 2005 elections.]
Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, November 8, 2009; Al-Sabah, Iraq, November 8, 2008; baghdadtimes.net, www.baghdadtimes.net , November 5, 2009
