U.N. sides with U.S. on voting in Iraq

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NEW YORK -- U.N. officials said yesterday that direct elections could not be organized in Iraq before the July deadline, placing the international body on the side of the United States in a looming confrontation with Iraq's Shi'ite community led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.

An estimated 20,000 Shi'ites marched through Basra yesterday, chanting "No, no to America" and demanding direct elections instead of the caucus system for choosing a transitional government determined by the Iraqi Governing Council and approved by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

That agreement made no mention of a U.N. role in the transitional process, although several Security Council resolutions have requested U.N. participation where possible.

Ayatollah al-Sistani, a highly influential cleric, has demanded direct elections before sovereignty is turned over to Iraqis at the end of June, which would likely favor Iraq's Shi'ite majority. He has also suggested that U.N. oversight could encourage transparency and accountability.

He is not alone.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish Governing Council member, told Reuters in Iraq yesterday that if the handover of power is carried out solely under the Americans, "it will be deficient because it will have been carried out under occupation."

"But if it is implemented under the supervision of the United Nations, the Europeans and the Arab League, then it will be much more acceptable," he said.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan feels "the time that would be needed to properly organize those elections, and the prevailing security conditions in the country" make nationwide elections "impractical," his spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York yesterday.

Other U.N. officials have said that direct elections would not be feasible yet because Iraq has neither political parties, nor an election law nor the kind of stable climate in which campaigning would be possible.