Maliki has earned himself admiration and praise of Iraqi people as well as the larger Arab world with his no-nonsense approach, often even confronting the Americans. The Iraqi leader risks undermining all that good work by pandering to the Shia ruling alliance at the expense of the country’s Sunnis.

If the Maliki government was totally wrong and unreasonable in banning hundreds of candidates, many of them prominent Sunni Muslims, from taking part in next month’s parliamentary elections, it is now adding insult to injury by resisting an appeals court decision to lift the curbs.

Now Iraqi election officials, appointed by Maliki, are urging the Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s decision to lift the ban.

Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Commission, led by a protégé of the discredited Ahmad Chalabi, had banned hundreds of Sunni candidates last month from running in parliamentary elections because of their alleged ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party.

On Sunday, as a closed door, extraordinary meeting of parliamentary leaders, Maliki and the top judge discussed the issue, Shia political parties protested in Baghdad shouting ‘No to Baathists’. Thankfully, saner counsel prevailed. Prime Minister Maliki, who had first denounced the court decision to overturn the ban on Sunni politicians as “illegal and unconstitutional,” has now decided to “accept the court jurisdiction.” However, the appeals court will still review the ‘banned’ candidates individually before the poll campaign kicks off, leaving the door to political manipulation still open. While we can understand Maliki’s political compulsions and need to play to his Shia political base, it’s time he realised that he doesn’t represent his community alone. As Prime Minister, he is the leader of and responsible for all Iraqi people and communities. He has a duty to protect and serve the interests of all Iraq is — Shia, Sunni, Kurds and Christians etc.

For after decades of misrule, the last thing Iraq needs today is sectarian strife and political chaos. Clearly, the ban on the so-called former Baathists was aimed at sidelining and disenfranchising the Sunni minority community, which enjoyed privileges under Saddan Hussein.

If that special treatment was unfair, the current discrimination against them is equally unjust. As it is, the Sunnis see themselves as the real victims of the US-led invasion and fall of the Iraqi regime. They have remained isolated from the political changes that have followed the fall of Saddam. The Sunnis largely boycotted the elections held under conditions that were far from perfect.

Iraq’s current leaders therefore have to reach out to the alienated minority community making it feel involved and part of the democratic and decision making process in Baghdad. Lasting peace and stability will elude Iraq as long as its Sunni minority remains out in the cold.