Iraq's top Shiite demands election guarantees

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's top Shiite cleric, who has insisted elections are necessary for a transfer of power on June 30, suggested he would accept a delay in voting but demanded U.N. guarantees that there will be no more postponements.

Still, many Shiite Muslims on Friday rejected a U.N. recommendation against early elections to shift power from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqis, and insisted on a vote to create the next government.

With early elections apparently off the table and most Iraqi leaders opposed to the original U.S. plan to pick a provisional government before the June 30 deadline using regional caucuses, Iraq's Governing Council and American administrators were trying to work out a new method.

The alternative preferred by the United States is to expand the 25-member Governing Council and hand it power on June 30 until elections can be held, according to Washington officials. Though the coalition would hand over power, the United States expects it to keep some 100,000 troops in Iraq for at least another two years.

Most council members are said to support the plan for an expanded council. But some remain in favor of caucuses, and others propose a "national conference" along the lines of Afghanistan's loya jirga, said Salaheddine Muhammad Bahaaeddine, a Sunni Kurd member of the Governing Council. A few still say an early election is possible.

"We're still discussing ideas regarding an alternative," Bahaaeddine told The Associated Press. "There's no agreement."

Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, opposed the original U.S. plan and had demanded elections by June 30. After his criticism, members of the U.S.-picked Governing Council -- which approved the plan in November -- turned against the caucuses.

In comments made public after the United Nations announcement, al-Sistani said U.S. administrators' "stalling" was the reason a vote by June 30 is not feasible. In any case, he said, preparations to carry out elections must begin "at the nearest possible opportunity."

He demanded "clear guarantees, such as a U.N. Security Council resolution, to reassure the Iraqi people that elections won't be blocked again for the same pretexts being used now."

Also, the body that takes power June 30 should have limited power, preventing it from taking "important decisions that affect the country's future policies," he said.

The comments were made in written responses to questions from the German magazine Der Spiegel, and al-Sistani's office made the answers available in Arabic to The Associated Press on Friday. Al-Sistani, 73, rarely speaks to the press.

Iraqi officials who have met with the ayatollah say he wants a vote well before the end of the year, compared to the U.S. plan to hold elections in 2005. The country's Shiite majority would likely dominate any elected government.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan backed Washington's June 30 deadline for the handover and agreed with the U.S. stance that elections before then are impossible. He is expected to offer alternatives in late February.

"The caucus system is something that has not received much support," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday. "There are a lot of ideas being discussed. ... We've always said we're open to refinements and clarifications."

On Friday, the eve of the beginning of the Islamic month Muharram, a season of major Shiite rituals, several hundred Shiite men dressed in black demonstrated in Najaf, carrying photos of al-Sistani and backing his call for quick elections.

"We are Sistani's soldiers," they chanted. "We want free and clean elections. We will not allow foreigners to decide our future."

"We reject (Annan's) statement," said Sheik Khaled al-Baghdady, a professor at the Shiite seminary headed by al-Sistani. "He should have clarified an appropriate time element for the elections."

An official of a major Shiite party close to al-Sistani -- the Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq -- spoke out Friday against any delay in elections.

"Delaying elections is not acceptable," Imam Kadhim al-Salehy said. "It's possible to prepare the proper conditions for elections now if the Iraqi people can provide security."

Hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also dismissed Annan's recommendation.

"We think that elections can be held before the end of June and we reject the postponement idea," he said through a representative.

A pro-Sadr cleric denounced the United Nations in his Friday prayer sermon at a major Shiite shrine in Baghdad, saying the Americans want to delay elections to continue the occupation.

"Watch out for these wicked diplomatic games ... They can have the U.N. put out any decision they want," Sheik Raed al-Saadi told a crowd of several thousand. "They want the U.N. as a cover for their own designs."

The Iraqi National Congress, whose Shiite leader Ahmad Chalabi is a member of the Governing Council, said Friday that elections were still possible before June 30 and dismissed Annan's finding as a nonbinding opinion.

"We also said before the U.N. delegation came to Baghdad that we are not obligated to their opinion. This is after all an Iraqi issue and we must solve it ourselves and we will take them as adviser," congress spokesman Entifadh Qanbar said.

------

Associated Press reporters Scheherezade Faramarzi in Najaf and Mariam Fam in Baghdad contributed to this report.