Iraq Not Ready for Elections, U.N. Says

To hold full elections, Iraqis need better security and at least eight months to prepare after negotiating a political and legal framework, according to a U.N. report released Monday. Though a vote before the end of the year is possible, it said, those conditions may push it into 2005.

The report by U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said that neither the U.S. plan to select an interim government through caucuses by June 30, nor a competing demand for full elections by then are viable. Brahimi and his team of political experts visited Iraq for a week this month.

But rather than dictate alternatives, the U.N. is bouncing the question back to Iraqis to work out for themselves. While the chicken-or-egg process is frustrating to Iraqis -- and U.S. officials -- who expected the U.N. to provide a road map for an increasingly complicated and important political transition, there is a U.N. strategy behind the tactic.

U.N. officials are hoping that through the process of answering fundamental questions -- what should the new government look like? Who gets to vote, and how? -- Iraqi leaders will jump-start their nascent political system and take a first step toward stability.

“It’s much better if Iraqis can identify their needs than an outsider,” said Kieran Prendergast, a senior advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “The U.N. is offering its good offices. It’s not mediation. It’s not arbitration. Above all, it is not imposition.”

Despite initial hopes that the U.N. would break the electoral impasse, Iraqi Governing Council members had become resigned to the fact that it would not submit a detailed plan.

“The more specific they are, the more helpful it would be,” said Samir Shakir Mahmoud, an independent member of the council. “But at the end of the day, it’s our problem to solve.”

Ahmad Shyaa Barak, another council member, said he hoped the U.N. would take a more active role in the coming weeks. “They can give us some good advice and provide some monitoring and supervision for the political change going on in Iraq,” he said.

Placing the solution in Iraqi hands may also absolve the U.N. of full responsibility -- or blame -- in the eyes of the U.S.-led occupation authority if things go wrong. Annan has been wary of returning international staff to the country after the Aug. 19 bombing of U.N. headquarters that killed 22 people. Washington’s difficulty in finding an acceptable transition plan for the handover makes U.N. officials even more cautious.

But the world body is ready to “play a supporting role” to help reach a consensus and implement it, the report said. Brahimi and other members of the political team are prepared to return to Iraq briefly if discussions need a nudge, U.N. officials said. For a longer-term presence, the U.N. requires an invitation, security guarantees and perhaps a Security Council resolution.

In a letter presenting the report to the Security Council, Annan wrote, “A precondition for the United Nations to succeed in Iraq is the clear and unambiguous support of a united Security Council and the establishment of a secure environment. The restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty to Iraqis provides an opportunity for the Council to forge such a consensus on both aspects.”

Although security is “a major concern,” the U.N. has organized elections in similar conditions, said Carina Perelli, the U.N. official who investigated the technical aspects of Iraq’s electoral needs. In East Timor’s 1999 elections, poll workers were assassinated, she said. Iraq’s electoral workers or candidates could also become targets for determined insurgents, she said -- the country will need at least 120,000 poll workers to run 30,000 stations. “If people really ... buy into the process, they are going to be the first to defend their right to vote,” she said. But Iraqis seem more concerned for their safety than eager to exercise the franchise. “We are not there yet in Iraq,” she said.

Staff writer Edmund Sanders contributed from Baghdad.