Baghdad, Iraq ? Four days before Iraqis vote for a new parliament, election officials Sunday turned down a government request to disqualify nearly 100 candidates suspected of having held mid-level leadership posts in Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.

The decision, swiftly denounced by members of the ruling coalition, said the disputed candidates’ names would remain on Thursday’s ballot because a government panel set up to purge ex-Baathists from public office had failed to offer proof of rank in the now-outlawed party.

Election officials postponed the explosive issue, warning that anyone winning a legislative seat could lose it if such proof emerged. More than 7,600 candidates are vying for 275 seats in the full-term, four-year Representative Council, which will replace the interim National Assembly elected last January.

The election, mandated by a new constitution ratified by voters Oct. 15, is the next step in a U.S.-guided effort to democratize Iraq in the wake of Saddam’s ouster in April 2003.

Two Iraqi soldiers stand near election campaign posters for the Shiite-list United Iraqi Alliance with pictures of prominent Shiite clerics Sunday in Najaf, Iraq.

American officials say they hope the government formed early next year by the new parliament will be broad enough to calm the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and allow the United States to begin withdrawing troops. Parties representing the Sunni minority boycotted the January election but are running this time and certain to gain representation .

One conflict that could limit Sunni participation in a coalition government is the wrangling over which ex-Baathists may hold office. Sunnis filled most of the party’s upper ranks, although some candidates whom the Shiite Muslim-led government tried to bar from Thursday’s ballot are Shiites.

The government’s blacklisting panel, the National De-Baathification Commission, originally demanded that 185 candidates be disqualified because they were accused of having served in the top four levels of the party hierarchy.

Of those, officials said, 35 to 40 candidates withdrew voluntarily. An additional 47 successfully challenged the panel by proving that their names had been confused with those of former Baathists.

But the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq refused to disqualify the roughly 100 remaining candidates.