BAGHDAD — The United States yesterday rejected a demand by Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric for quick direct elections, saying it is logistically impossible to do so and meet a July 1 deadline to hand power to Iraqis.
“There is no electoral infrastructure in this country to institute direct elections immediately,” Dan Senor, a spokesman for the coalition, said in response to reporters’ questions about the timing of Iraq’s elections.
“There are no voter rolls,” he said. “There are no electoral districts. There is no history of direct elections in this country.”
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most respected leader among Shi’ite Muslims who comprise at least 60 percent of Iraq’s population, made the demand for direct elections in a statement Sunday.
He reiterated his demand in a full-page newspaper advertisement yesterday.
“The power belongs to the Iraqi people and not to those who came from outside,” the ayatollah said in the ad taken out by a group of Shi’ite tribal leaders who met with him recently.
“Future elections in Iraq should be popular elections, not selections.”
Ahmad Mokhtar, the U.S.-educated specialist who designed the computer system used to provide humanitarian assistance to 23 million Iraqis under the United Nations’ oil-for-food program since 1997, said he has written and submitted a detailed plan that could lead to elections in three months.
“We have a comprehensive database that has information about the entire population that were in Iraq before the war,” Mr. Mokhtar said in an interview.
“It contains everything including date of birth, which would allow us to extract the names … of those who are eligible to vote,” he said.
Mr. Mokhtar said he has not received a single word about his proposal from either the coalition or the Iraqi Governing Council.
Violence continued throughout the country yesterday, most notably in the Shi’ite-dominated south that generally has cooperated with the U.S.-led effort.
Ukrainian soldiers fired into the air in Kut, about 95 miles south of Baghdad, to disperse hundreds of Iraqis who rioted for jobs and food.
Trouble started when someone in a crowd of about 400 threw a grenade at police and Ukrainian soldiers, injuring four Iraqi policemen and one Ukrainian, Lt. Zafer Wedad told Reuters news agency.
In a similar protest in Amarah on Sunday, waves of protesters rushed British troops guarding the city hall before being pushed back. On Saturday, clashes in Amarah killed six protesters and wounded at least 11.
Also yesterday, a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed one American soldier and wounded two, bringing the U.S. death toll in the Iraq conflict to 495.
Two large mortar rounds narrowly missed a central Baghdad hotel last night.
Mr. Mokhtar, the computer specialist, said he handed to the Governing Council several weeks ago a plan that includes a month-by-month schedule that would lead to elections as early as June.
It includes plans for merging the database used by the semiautonomous Kurdish north of the country with the main database, as well as plans to register returning exiles and Iraqis living abroad.
The Governing Council is considering several proposals for elections, said spokesman Hamid al-Khifaey, but is loath to rely on any information gathered during the previous regime.
“We cannot rely on any old information. We have to carry out a new census,” he said.
• Sharon Behn contributed to this report from Baghdad.
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