UN team in Iraq seeks third way

Some also believe that the US and its head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, are seeking to manage the process rather than face any of the nasty surprises that a free election could produce. "Mr. Bremer is afraid of losing control," says one Governing Council member. "But if some control isn't given up, how will the new Iraqi leadership have the credibility it needs?"

Even before the UN began its work, its team leader, Lakhdar Brahimi, indicated that he's leaning towards the US position that a direct election by June 30 isn't a good idea. "If you get your priorities wrong, elections are a very divisive process," Mr. Brahimi said last week. "They create tensions. They create competition ... and one has to be certain they will not do more harm than good," he said.

So what then, are the options? Analysts like Mr. Jouejati favor delay and a crash process to prepare the country for elections. Some members of the Governing Council who are close to the US say that if elections aren't held then power could simply be shifted to them, or perhaps to an expanded group that includes the council's current 25 members, supplemented by other high-profile figures.

Shiites who agree with Sistani, some of whom sit on the governing council, say partial elections in the more peaceful sections of the country could work.

"If Sistani's plan can't be done, then we demand some other sort of elections,'' says Humam Hamid, the head of the Baghdad office for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the largest Shiite political parties, whose head, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, sits on the Governing Council. "Five times we met with the Americans before the war, and they promised five times that the occupation wouldn't last more than one year. A two-year occupation would be a new tyranny. The most important thing in a new democratic country is to have free elections."

Since November, the Bush administration has been adamant that sovereignty would be given to an Iraqi government by June 30. CPA officials have said they believe a handover could undermine support for the anti-US insurgency and ease conditions in Iraq.

And that's still the official position of the coalition. "We think it is very important not only to meet the request to continually hand over authority to the Iraqi people, but also to stick to a deadline that we agreed upon with the Iraqi leadership,'' says coalition spokesman Dan Senor.

But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a meeting with Congress last week that it was possible the date could be shifted "depending on the way the world evolves."

Lost in the debate over elections has been another of Sistani's demands: He wants the continued US presence to be voted on by Iraq's people.

Jouejati says this has left the US in a bind. "Ayatollah Sistani has come out with his proposal for one man, one vote, and why not? It made sense in the case of South Africa. But this is a source of pain for the Americans because they wouldn't like to see a Shiite majority in the country."

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