Iraqi religious leader hints he would accept election delay

BAGHDAD - Iraq's top Shi'ite religious leader has hinted in an interview that he would allow a delay to elections in line with a UN verdict that ruled out polls before the end of US-led occupation in June.

But Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, widely seen as holding the key to Iraq's political future, said any delay should be brief and any interim government should have limited authority.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sided with the United States, saying elections in Iraq before the political transfer of power on June 30 were not feasible. He also said the date for restoring sovereignty that Washington wants "must be respected".

Sistani told Germany's Der Spiegel an interim government should be charged only with running the day-to-day affairs of the state in the run-up to quick elections.

"This institution should not be able to take political decisions which affect the future of our country," Sistani told the magazine. "Such decisions should only be taken by a government formed from free elections."

Asked how long polls should be delayed, he said: "It should not last long."

Sistani usually does not grant face to face interviews but his office presents his answers to written questions. It was not clear when the interview was conducted.

Hamid al-Khaffaf, a Lebanon-based senior aide to Sistani, said the cleric would declare his final position after Annan presents a report soon, giving a timeframe for future elections.

Khaffaf said one of the ideas being looked at was transferring power to an appointed body, such as the US-appointed Governing Council, with limited authority to prepare for elections before the end of the year.

"The condition attached to this would be a Security Council resolution that would cover these points," Khaffaf told Reuters by telephone.

MIXED REACTION

Original US plans for the handover, involving regional caucuses choosing an assembly that would select a government, were derailed after Sistani demanded early direct elections.

The Bush administration acknowledged on Friday that the plan had not been popular and said it was talking to Iraqi leaders about alternatives.

"There's wide recognition that the caucus plan is something that has not received much support," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

Washington, which is trying to re-engage the United Nations in efforts to stabilise the country, had asked the world body to come up with proposals for Iraq's political future before and after the June 30 transfer of power.

But McClellan said the United Nations had not assumed a presiding role over negotiations in Iraq.

"We have always said the United Nations had a vital role to play. We appreciated their efforts in assessing the feasibility of elections, and we will continue to discuss ways they can continue to be involved," he said.

Annan is prepared to send his top adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, back to Baghdad to help form an interim government if Iraqi leaders could not agree how to do it, UN officials said.

But he did not give any proposals for a caretaker government to take power in June, saying Iraqis should determine its shape before the world body steps in.

"We have absolutely no preferred options," Annan told reporters.

Iraqis appeared sceptical Iraq's US occupiers wanted democracy in the oil-rich country it invaded last March.

"This occupation will never end. All this talk about elections and sovereignty and the Governing Council is designed to keep Iraqis quiet," said unemployed Hussein Ali, 28.

But not all seemed ready to give up on the idea of early election. A representative of firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rejected Annan's assessment.

"The people's first and last demand is to have...free, democratic and honest elections in Iraq," Sheikh Nasser al-Saedi told worshippers in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Sadr city suburb.

"This demand remains the only one, whether the United Nations did or didn't say that elections are not possible."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq