Iraqi Council Works on Poll Compromise

 

Thursday  January 15, 2004

Fatima Issawi, Agence France Presse

BAGHDAD, 15 January 2004 — Iraq’s interim Governing Council was yesterday exploring a compromise with the country’s top Shiite leader after he hardened demands for snap elections ahead of a return to self-rule.

“We are discussing a proposal for elections in some provinces,” said Mohsen Abul Hamid, a Sunni member of the council.

It could become a compromise solution, he said, stressing that for the time being it remained only a proposal to be fleshed out

The readiness of the council to seek a way out lies in the threatening tone adopted by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the most influential figure leading the Shiite majority.

“The proposed mechanism involves organizing elections everywhere that is possible,” Abul Hamid said.

“We can envisage in each province an electoral group of 100,000 members vote for a delegate and that these delegates in turn vote for the members of the assembly from among their own number.”

The ayatollah made it clear to council members he met on Sunday that the calendar set out in a Nov. 15 agreement to select an Iraqi government without elections ahead of restoring sovereignty by July 1 was not “sacred”, one of his aides said.

He also warned the council against striking any accord to keep foreign troops in Iraq, insisting that was for democratically elected representatives to decide.

Faced with the ayatollah’s hardening line, the United States said Tuesday it was discussing with Iraqi officials different methods of selecting a transitional assembly, including direct elections in certain areas.

However, in Baghdad and Washington, US officials ruled out nationwide elections, citing the security situation and lack of legal infrastructure. Instead, as under the November agreement, the assembly will be chosen through a regional caucus system that should be set up by mid-March.

Under that deal, the caucuses would be led by organizing committees appointed by members of the US-appointed council and local officials. The State Department did say Washington was willing to be flexible on how the caucuses are set up.

“There is discussion on how exactly that assembly would be selected,” deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. “We are engaged with different parties in Iraq in those discussions.

“There can be discussions with different parties in Iraq about the modalities or the technicalities... of how caucuses are conducted,” he told reporters.

But, Ereli stressed that nothing would be changed in the timetable already agreed between the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the council and under which post-war Iraq’s first direct elections would not take place until next year.

One US official said Washington was prepared to allow Iraqis to vote for the assembly in secure areas where the local administration is able to handle the responsibility, perhaps in coordination with the United Nations. “This is one idea that’s on the table,” the official said. “It’s not doable across the country, but elections could be workable in some parts.”

Sistani, who fears attempts to marginalize his community, has repeatedly rejected pleas to endorse the caucus system, calling for the entire assembly to be elected directly.

Ereli said Washington hoped the United Nations would play a role in finding a compromise.

The top US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said Tuesday that direct elections were technically not possible.

He noted that today, about two months before the assembly would need to be selected, there is no Iraqi electoral commission, election law, political party legislation or voter registration and there are no electoral constituencies. “There are none of the things that you need to conduct a legitimate and effective election here in the next six months,” he said.

The caucus method is “not as good as an election, but we believe it’s important to return sovereignty and return the dignity to the Iraqi people on the timeline that we’ve agreed, which is by the end of June.”

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