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BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Some of Iraq's most powerful
political groups, including the party led by the
interim prime minister, called on Friday for a
six-month delay in elections scheduled for Jan. 30,
citing concerns over security.
The list of groups seeking the delay includes some
that have been among the strongest backers of U.S.
policy in Iraq, and their call indicates sudden
momentum for those arguing for a postponement. The
two main Kurdish parties supported the delay
request, marking the first time that the Kurds,
closely allied with the Americans, have taken a
clear stand on the issue.
President George W. Bush, speaking to reporters at
his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said he hoped the
elections would proceed on schedule. But in recent
days administration officials involved in Iraq
policy have indicated in private comments that they
would insist on January elections only as long as
the Iraqi government did.
The Iraqi government itself did not join in the
petition to the electoral commission, and the party
of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave oral assent
rather than a signature to the document signed by at
least 15 groups and dozens of individual political
and religious figures after an impassioned two-hour
meeting at the Baghdad home of Adnan Pachachi, a
prominent Sunni politician.
"The participants call for postponement of the
elections for six months in order to address the
current security situation and to complete the
necessary administrative, technical and systematic
arrangements," the petition said.
One participant said Allawi's party, the Iraqi
National Accord, limited itself to verbal agreement
perhaps out of fear that a written call by the prime
minister for an election delay would be seen as a
self-serving effort to stay in power.
Shiite Muslims, who make up at least 60 percent of
the population, have been adamant about holding
elections by the end of January. Sunni Arabs, and
Kurds to a lesser degree, have expressed fears that
Shiites will vastly dominate the new government and
exercise their power unchecked. The Sunni Arabs and
the Kurds each make up about one-fifth of the
population, and the Sunnis ruled what is now Iraq
for centuries until the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
An interim constitution approved in the spring says
elections must be held by the end of January. On
Sunday, an Iraqi electoral commission independent of
the government set Jan. 30 as election day. But even
before that, some parties, particularly ones
dominated by Sunni Arabs, had begun agitating for a
delay, arguing that violence in the Sunni regions of
central and northern Iraq would cut voter turnout.
In the city of Mosul, for example, attacks have
surged, and U.S. military officials said Friday that
15 more Iraqi bodies, some decapitated, had been
discovered.
Most of the groups that met at Pachachi's home are
secular and led by Sunni Arabs. The call for delay
further widens the growing political rifts between
Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and underscores the stark
sectarian divisions that threaten to unravel the
social fabric of this country.
Most secular parties also have little name
recognition right now and want more time to organize
campaigns against religious candidates.
But those arguing for a delay Friday cited the
deteriorating security condition as the main reason.
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, clerics called at
Friday prayers for everyone to take part in the
coming elections. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini
al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq,
has insisted that the vote must take place on time.
An organizer with the Iraqi electoral commission
said in an interview that the commissioners would
discuss the new demands for an election delay, but
expressed doubt that there would be any changes.
"We will talk about this tomorrow, but we don't
think we'll postpone the elections," said the
organizer, Adel al-Lami. "There's a schedule, and we
need to stick to that."
Al-Lami said the commission was already taking into
account the country's precarious security situation
in its planning. The deadline by which political
groups have to present a list of candidates for the
ballots has been extended to Dec. 10, he said. The
commission has also extended to Nov. 30 the
registration date for political groups based in the
most violent provinces of Iraq, he added.
There appeared to be some confusion among
commissioners about who has the power to postpone
the Jan. 30 date. Al-Lami said the commission could
postpone the elections given extraordinary
circumstances. But the head of the commission,
Abdul-Hassan al-Hindawi, said in a recent interview
that no one had the legal authority to push the vote
beyond January.
Iraqis are to elect members of a 275-seat national
assembly that will choose a prime minister and other
executives from its ranks. The assembly is also
charged with writing a permanent constitution.
Elections for a full-term government are planned for
the end of 2005.
Two other sets of elections are planned for Jan. 30
-- one for leaders of the country's 18 provinces,
and one for a Kurdistan assembly in the north.
The politicians gathered at Pachachi's house did not
say what they would do if the elections went ahead
as scheduled. If Sunni parties and voters decide to
sit out the elections, the outcome could be seen as
illegitimate, and the guerrilla war, which is being
led by Sunnis, could intensify. Already, one
prominent Sunni group, the Muslim Scholars
Association, has called for a boycott of the
elections.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,"
Pachachi said in an interview, when asked what the
groups would do if the schedule remained unchanged.
"We'll have to look at the situation as a whole and
see what is reasonable."
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