Saddam Hussein re-elected Baath Party leader
( 2001-05-18 10:39) (7)
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was re-elected head of the ruling Baath Party late Thursday, state television reported, renewing Saddam's grip on power 22 years after he took office.
"President Saddam Hussein was re-elected Thursday to the post of secretary general of the Iraqi command of the Baath party for years to come," the television announced.
It said Saddam was re-elected unanimously and said the Baath party's new leadership held its first meeting Thursday to look at its agenda for the coming years.
In a brief speech to open the meeting, Saddam stressed "the need for the Baath to serve the interests of the people and the Arab nation, and foremost the Palestinian cause."
His re-election automatically renews Saddam's position as chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, the country's highest position of power.
Ten of the 18 members of the Baath command were re-elected and seven new members are due to join, including Saddam's son Qusai.
Other leaders re-elected by the Baath party include Iraqi number two Ezzat Ibrahim, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and interim foreign minister Tareq Aziz.
The outgoing members of the Baath party leadership, such as deputy prime minister Mohamed Hamza Al-Zoubaidi will, in principle, lose their government posts.
Since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which was rolled back a year later by a US-led coalition in the Gulf war, Saddam has regularly consulted with the Revolutionary Command Council and the Baath party to take stock of the political situation.
The Baath party's "national command" was headed by Michel Aflak, an Arab intellectual who helped found the movement, until his death in 1989. He has not been replaced.
But power in Baghdad actually rests in the Baath party's "regional command," which Saddam has headed since taking power in 1979.
Saddam also holds the titles of Iraq's president, prime minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
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