BAGHDAD, 10 December 2004 — A spokesman from Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s office yesterday denied a media report that he had proposed spreading Iraq’s Jan. 30 election over several days to improve security.
“These reports are false and inaccurate,” said the spokesman, adding that Allawi was misquoted in a Swiss newspaper on Tuesday that reported him saying extended polls over two to three weeks could be considered.
Geneva’s Le Temps daily quoted Allawi as saying the vote would go ahead as scheduled at the end of next month despite continuing bloodshed. But to ensure all ethnic and religious communities could take part safely, it could be staggered, with different provinces going to the polls on different days, he said.
“One can imagine elections spread out over 15 or 20 days, with the dates differing according to the provinces,” the paper quoted him as saying. “These would allow for adequate security measures to be installed.”
Iraq’s Interior Ministry had on Wednesday backed such a proposal and the country’s electoral commission, the ultimate authority on the election, said it would consider the idea.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims yesterday unveiled a broad alliance ahead of next month’s key elections that is backed by their highest religious leader but which excludes radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr.
The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) groups the Dawa party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, Dawa’s Ali Adib told reporters here.
But Sadr, whose militia battled US-led forces in Baghdad and Najaf before calling a truce, is not on the 228-strong list backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, said Hussein Shahrastani, a member of the organizing committee.
Shahrastani said Sadr had not registered his group. But Sadr “has said repeatedly that he supports the efforts of the Marjaya (the highest Shiite religious authority in Iraq) to unite Iraqis and to ensure the elections are free and fair,” he added.
The UIA “contains parties and political currents as well as independent figures of different confessions and ethnic groups and takes into consideration the demographic and geographic balance in Iraq,” said Adib.
The list presented yesterday to the electoral commission contained 25 groupings, at least eight of which are Shiite formations, he said. Sunnis, Failis (Kurdish Shiites), Turkmen, and Yazidis are also represented.
The Yazidis, who number just a few thousand in Iraq, worship a pre-Islamic god but have long been labeled as devil worshippers. They have lived since the 12th century near the northern town of Mosul.
The Failis live mostly in Diyala province just north of Baghdad and make up only two percent of Iraq’s mostly Sunni Kurdish population. The Kurds themselves will also pick the 111 members of an autonomous Parliament for their northern region in January’s vote. Overall, Iraqis are to elect 275 members of a National Assembly in the vote planned for Jan. 30, the country’s first free and multiparty polls in half a century.
Representatives of Iraq’s influential Shiite religious organizations have vehemently opposed calls by some parties for the vote to be postponed over security concerns.
Sistani is one of the most powerful and popular figures in the country and commentators say any list endorsed by him will be a strong contender in the polls.
He has confirmed his role as a major power broker in the country since last year’s ouster of Saddam Hussein. Sadr emerged as the man who defended the holiest site in Shiite Islam, in the city of Najaf, against the formidable military might of the United States.
