Coalition and Iraqi Allies Go Slow on Elections

U.S. occupation officials and their Iraqi allies on Monday rejected demands that direct election of a new national government be expedited, despite calls by an influential cleric for an imminent vote.

“We all want to implement democracy in Iraq, but we don’t want to be hasty,” said Hamid Kifai, spokesman for the U.S.-installed Iraqi Governing Council.

U.S. officials are continuing to work with their Iraqi allies on a plan to return sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, but elections would wait until next year.

“There is no electoral infrastructure in this country to ... institute direct elections immediately,” said Dan Senor, spokesman for L. Paul Bremer III, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, repeating the oft-stated U.S. position. “There are no voter rolls, no electoral districts. There is no history of direct elections in this country.”

The defense of the go-slow approach came as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the nation’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, intensified his campaign to force speedy direct elections. Shiites, long ruled by Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, account for more than 60% of the population.

As the fight over the shape of the new Iraq continued, the U.S. military’s death toll neared 500. A roadside bomb hit a convoy in Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding two others, bringing the toll since fighting began in March to 495, according to Associated Press.

In a full-page advertisement Monday in a leading Baghdad daily newspaper, Sistani was quoted warning Iraqis obliquely about unspecified outsiders who seek to delay direct elections. It was unclear whether he was referring to coalition officials or the members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, which includes many Iraqis who lived in exile for years before returning after the fall of President Saddam Hussein.

“They want to distort the elections, distort democracy, distort the freedom which Iraqis are enjoying,” the septuagenarian cleric is quoted as advising tribal leaders during a meeting in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad that is his base.

In the advertisement, published in the Al Azzaman newspaper, Sistani also called on the tribal leaders to recall the resistance of their ancestors against the British colonial regime in the 1920s. That rebellion was crushed but lives on, especially among the Shiite majority.

The comments were the latest in an escalating series of provocative declarations by Sistani, who has emerged as a major obstacle to the plans hammered out between Washington and the Iraqi leadership on how to transfer power.

The day before the newspaper ad, Sistani’s office in Najaf issued a statement calling credible national elections possible “within the forthcoming months.” He warned Sunday that the interim national government envisioned by Washington would be formed by an “illegitimate mechanism,” and predicted “serious problems” and a weakening of security and political stability.

U.S. officials and their allies here indicated they did not see the latter comment as a veiled threat. Rather, they said, Sistani and his advisors appeared to be throwing their weight around to maximize their influence in any future government.

“What I hear from Ayatollah Sistani and the full range of religious and political leaders is a ... democratic vision for Iraq,” Senor said. “We think it’s a healthy process when all these individuals are able to have a healthy debate and discussion in this country. It’s something we want to protect.”

Last year, Sistani’s insistence on rapid elections contributed to a White House decision to scrap its plans for a more gradual return of Iraqi sovereignty. Instead, U.S. officials and the Governing Council agreed Nov. 15 on a stepped-up schedule that would restore independence on June 30 -- to a transitional assembly chosen by regional assemblies -- ahead of full elections and a constitution, now scheduled to be in place in 2005.

U.S. troops are expected to remain in Iraq well beyond the scheduled transfer of power.

The current debate puts U.S. officials and their allies in an awkward position: No one wants to appear to oppose free elections in a nation run for more than three decades by a dictator who was finally toppled by a U.S.-led invasion. American authorities and their allies are emphasizing practical obstacles, saying it will take at least a year to register voters, set up polls and otherwise organize fair elections.

The Governing Council has pointed to the lack of an accurate census as a major impediment.

“We need to have infrastructure ready for elections before we can carry out any proper elections that would be safe and sound and trusted by the people of Iraq, and internationally,” said Kifai, the Governing Council spokesman, who appeared at a news conference with Senor.

Advocates for speedier elections have suggested a number of alternatives, such as using an existing list of Iraqi citizens compiled by the United Nations.

However, the Iraqi Governing Council spokesman said the U.N. lists were not reliable. And the last count of the Iraqi population is missing at least 5 million people, including many who have returned since the Hussein regime was toppled in the spring.

In other developments, the foreign ministers of Spain and Iraq called Monday for the U.N. to return to Iraq to help with the transfer of power.

Iraqi officials are scheduled to visit U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Jan. 19.

The U.N. pulled out its international staff in the fall after two suicide bombings at its headquarters here, one of which killed 22 people. Annan has said the situation remains too dangerous to send staff members back.