Iraq's interim leaders review transition plans

News, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Jordan Times, Sunday, November 30, 2003

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq's US-installed interim leadership held key talks Saturday on demands from the powerful Shiite religious hierarchy for immediate elections that have undermined the democratic credentials of the US-led coalition and left its plans for an accelerated transfer of power in tatters. The talks that opened at 10:00am (0700 GMT) lasted for about four hours and were expected to resume Sunday, but the deep divisions within the Governing Council over the matter have prompted an urgent meeting with the US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer.

"There will be a meeting with Bremer Wednesday morning or maybe before," council member Mahmud Othman told AFP at the end of Saturday's talks.

"No decision was taken today but I am confident that we will reach consensus," added Othman, a Kurd.

Another council member Muaffak Al Rubai, a Shiite Muslim, said he expects "the dialogue to continue with the Coalition Provisional Authority."

The controversy was sparked by a rejection by top Shiite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani of the arcane system of indirect selection by caucuses announced on Nov. 15 in an agreement between the US-installed council and the coalition.

The plan, which was critised by Sistani, calls for putting a caretaker government in place by June next year after the drafting of a basic law by end-February 2004 and the selection of a transitional assembly by end-May 2004.

Those in favour of the blueprint say deadlines will not be respected if direct elections are held instead of a gradual transfer to sovereignty.

"The main thing is to restore sovereignty for the Iraqis. Of course it would be preferable that (the transitional assembly) reflects the peoples' opinion but for elections to be held, all Iraqis must participate, including four million of them living in exile," said Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, a secular pro-US Shiite Muslim.

"No Iraqi is ready to postpone regaining sovereignty and putting an end to occupation" he said ahead of the meeting, whose contents have been kept under tight wraps.

For independent Shiite leader Mohammad Bahr Al Ulum, the document envisages "a kind of election of the transitional assembly through an electoral committee" which he said "could be simplified."

He too rejected direct elections at this juncture, mainly because of Iraq's volatile security situation.

Iyad Allawi, of the Iraqi National Accord, for his part said that "the electoral process, which requires a census, will take 14 months at best."

Allawi, a secular Shiite former exile, did not attend Saturday's meeting but had a party representative sitting in for him, council sources said.

His latest declaration amounted to a rejection of Sistani's proposal that a census be momentarily bypassed and polls be held on the basis of the ration cards distributed to the population since 1991, to help cope with the impact of the UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Sistani, who wants the Iraqis to be directly and immediately involved in designating their government, rather than wait until end-December 2005 general elections as stipulated by the Nov. 15 blueprint, has threatened "real problems" if the document was not amended.

Political leaders of Iraq's main Shiite religious parties, the pro-Sistani Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) headed by Abdel Aziz Al Hakim and Al Daawa led by Ibrahim Al Jaafari, also demanded that elections be held at once, including at the municipal level.

They refused that municipal and provincial council representatives who were largely designated by the US-led coalition, play a role in selecting the transitional assembly.

Council members have so far stressed they could resolve their differences through negotiations but criticisms are running high outside the US-installed body.

Five "Iraqi national and democratic" groups released a statement Saturday protesting the lack of consultations with political parties and the country's civil society.

The US-led coalition too has been caught on the hop by opposition from among Iraq's Shiite majority community and admitted it considers the complaint significant enough for a major overhaul of the blueprint.

On the record, US officials said they were discussing the demands of the Shiite religious leadership with the interim leadership as part of what they described as a "healthy" debate.

But off the record, a senior official told The Washington Post that the prior polls, which the coalition has so far resisted, were now a "possibility" and appeared to give Sistani a veto over their newly unveiled plans.

"If he says no to the caucuses, then we have to figure out a way to get elections done," the official was quoted as saying by the Post. "We're scrambling to find a solution."

US President George W. Bush met with four members of the Governing Council during his lightning stopover in Baghdad Thursday evening and briefly discussed the handover.

Bush acknowledged that the grievances voiced by Sistani constituted an "overarching flaw" in the new transition blueprint which he had discussed with his Iraqi interlocutors.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

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