|
UN Official: Early Iraq Elections Unlikely
EFL. HT Drudge. Focus seems to be on scuttling the US caucus plan. Goodbye any new constitution. Hello Sharia. A U.N. official said Friday it was unlikely elections could be held before a U.S.-set June 30 deadline for handing power to the Iraqis, and several Iraqi leaders said there was growing support for scrapping the U.S. blueprint for establishing a new government. U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, warned Iraqis to be aware of the risks of civil war as they try to find an acceptable formula for sovereignty.[....] Some members of the U.S.-picked Governing Council were pushing an alternative to the U.S. plan that would call for transferring sovereignty to an expanded council on June 30. The council would then arrange elections before the end of the year. Doubts about the complex U.S. plan were expressed Friday to Brahimi during a meeting with the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. Brahimi arrived Sunday to try to break an impasse between the Shiite Muslim clergy and the U.S.-led occupation authority on how to establish a new Iraqi government. Under the American formula, 18 regional caucuses would pick a new legislature, which in turn would choose a provisional government to take power June 30 and serve until elections in 2005. The U.S. plan, announced Nov. 15, lost ground when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani demanded legislative elections before June 30. Al-Sistani called the caucuses method "illegitimate." [....] Opposition to the U.S. plan among the Governing Council is significant because it was a signatory of the Nov. 15 agreement, along with the U.S.-led occupation authority. Brahimi told reporters Friday that he would return to New York and submit his recommendations to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a week to 10 days. Asked if the caucus plan was dead, Brahimi said that decision was not his to make but "I think the people who put it together realize that, at the very least, it needs to be improved considerably." This should be interesting- - the UN making a decision to help. More at link Posted by: GK 2004-02-13 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=26175 |