UN envoy stresses need for credible elections in Iraq

THE United Nations envoy sent to Iraq to see if early elections were feasible said yesterday that credibility was more important than timing, after one of his aides ruled out holding polls before Washington hands back power in June.

The UN is trying to resolve a dispute between Iraq’s majority Shiites, who want elections before the transfer, and Washington, which says there is not enough time to organise them.

"The demand of the Iraqi street for elections is a legitimate request, but the Iraqi street must know that elections are a very complicated process," said Lakhdar Brahimi, an adviser to the UN’s secretary-general, Kofi Annan.

"The benefits the street is hoping for cannot be achieved unless there are good preparations for those elections and they are conducted at a time when everybody can accept the result," he told a news conference in Baghdad.

Mr Brahimi would not speculate on when that might be.

Earlier yesterday, his spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, said there was no question of delaying the 30 June handover or holding elections before then.

"Elections will take place when the country is ready, and that will be after the handover of power," Mr Fawzi said.

Supporters of Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, warned yesterday of a revolt against the US-led coalition if their demands for direct elections were not met.

Hussein Khalifa, a 43-year-old community elder, said: "The ball is in the United Nations’ court. If they do not achieve our goals we will open a front against them.

"What is this talk that conditions are not ready for elections? Are the only conditions ready the ones that allow Americans to move about and do what they want freely in Iraq?"

Mr Annan is expected to give his verdict on the Brahimi team’s findings in about a week to ten days. Mr Brahimi met Ayatollah Sistani on Thursday and said they agreed that thorough preparations were essential to credible elections. It was not clear if that agreement stretched to delaying polls.

Iraq’s Shiites make up 60 per cent of the population and could dominate in an election.