Cleric Wants Iraqi Opinion on Possibility of Elections
The country’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric wants Iraqi experts, not just those from the United Nations, to conclude that early elections are not feasible before he will drop his opposition to the U.S. political blueprint for the nation, an aide said Thursday.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani also is adamant that the U.S.-led occupation meet a June 30 deadline to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi government, said the aide, Mohammed Yehia Mawsawi.
If U.N. and Iraqi experts conclude elections cannot be held before the hand-over, Sistani wants them to come up with other ways to make the transitional legislature as representative of the Iraqi people as possible, Mawsawi said.
The coalition plan calls for the national legislature to be chosen in 18 regional caucuses rather than by direct election as Sistani has demanded. The legislature will name the new government.
Mawsawi said the formula for choosing legislators by caucus would perpetuate “the illegitimacy” of Iraqi institutions.
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