Voicing Optimism, U.N. Official Outlines an Election Plan for Iraq

The U.N. elections chief said Monday that she is cautiously upbeat about Iraq’s ability to hold balloting for a national assembly by early next year, describing the process as “better than on track.”

Carina Perelli, who just returned from an assessment mission in Iraq, said U.N. experts would select an electoral commission by the end of the month to oversee balloting scheduled for January. The panel, to be made up of seven Iraqis and an international advisor, will establish the rules for the election and ultimately decide whether the country is stable enough to hold a vote for the 275-member national assembly.

To ensure that the commission is seen as impartial, Perelli said, it will be independent of the Iraqi transitional government that the United Nations is helping to create by June 30. Only the nation’s supreme court will be able to hear an appeal of its decisions. Members must disavow any political affiliation or expression while serving on the panel.

Candidates can be nominated by anyone in the country until May 15. Then U.N. electoral experts will winnow the prospective panelists to a short list of 20 people to be interviewed for the posts.

The U.N. team will also name an international commissioner to help guide the process, but that person will have a “voice but no vote, because this has to be a fully Iraqi process,” she said.

During her recent trip, Perelli was struck by the intensity of Iraqis’ yearning to participate more in creating their government -- and have the rest of the world stop making decisions for them.

“What I have seen is a very, very strong desire and commitment to have their voices heard for the first time, and to be heard very loudly,” Perelli told a news conference here Monday.

The process of organizing elections in a country with little experience of democracy will be complicated and dangerous, Perelli said. After decades under the harsh control of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, Iraqis are highly suspicious of politics.

“Anti-political party feelings are very high,” she said.

She cited fear of former Baathists, suspicion of some extreme and “unrepresentative” parties and skepticism of “the exiles,” such as members of Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, who are criticized in Iraq as representing “foreign money” and self-interest.

But voter education would be a part of the electoral process, Perelli said, adding that the U.N. plans to encourage like-minded interests to coalesce into political blocs.

The world body will help prepare three simultaneous elections: for the national assembly, regional councils and a separate Kurdish assembly in northern Iraq.

Doing all three at the same time is possible, Perelli said, but she called it “the queen of all headaches.”

If everything goes smoothly, January is the earliest that polls could take place, Perelli said. But she warned that if security did not improve soon, U.N. experts would not be able to assist preparations and elections might be delayed.

“The U.N. will not participate in a Mickey Mouse election,” said Perelli, an Uruguayan who has helped organize elections in Cambodia, Afghanistan and East Timor.

But she expressed hope that when Iraqis feel that they have a stake in a legitimate process, the violence might ease.

“Once you launch an electoral process, particularly if the citizenry starts to believe and take ownership in the process ... people fighting for the right to have that election also occurs,” she said.

One of the most difficult aspects of forming new democracies, she said, is having people understand that there are winners and losers and that the losers must accept the results.

Perelli took care to point out that the United Nations’ recommendations had been endorsed by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority as well as the Iraqi Governing Council and other Iraqi religious and civic leaders.

The Bush administration, struggling with mounting violence and resentment of the occupation in Iraq, has increasingly been shifting responsibility for the delicate political transition into the United Nations’ hands.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.’s special envoy, is expected to return to Baghdad by the end of the week to start naming leaders of the transitional government slated to take power on June 30.