IRAQ: Iraq's president reignited calls for a delay to the first national elections due in three weeks when he said yesterday that escalating violence would make it difficult to hold a proper vote
Already the main Sunni party has withdrawn from the election while other senior Iraqi officials, including the defence minister and the ambassador to the UN, have publicly suggested a delay.
At a meeting of hundreds of Sunni figures in a Baghdad mosque yesterday there were further angry calls for a postponement. This combined force of opinion is putting the January 30th poll in jeopardy.
"On a logical basis, there are signs that it will be a tough call to hold the election," the president, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, said. The UN should decide whether it was safe to hold the vote as scheduled.
Some in the Iraqi government wanted a delay but did not have the authority to arrange it, he said. Technically, only Iraq's independent election commission has the power to change the date.
"Definitely if a big chunk of the Iraqi population is deprived of participating it will not result in very successful elections," Mr Yawar said. "This election has a unique role of drafting a constitution. How can you draft a constitution unless all ethnicities, sects, religions and political ideologies are included?"
Nearly all the pressure for a delay is coming from the minority Sunni community, among which the insurgency has emerged in the past two years. Mr Yawar is a moderate Sunni and a respected tribal leader.
Sunni leaders recognise that the violence in their regions and anger at the US occupation will deter their voters and leave the Sunni community perilously under-represented in the new government. Some analysts fear the imbalance could be so serious as to propel Iraq into a civil war.
The Iraqi Islamic party, the largest Sunni party, said it was withdrawing from the election. Mr Amar Wajil, head of the party's political office, yesterday endorsed Mr Yawar's call. "If there is a delay, that will be very good news and will change a lot of things," he said. "We are not against the elections, we just want a delay and we want these calls to come from our brothers the Shia, too."
But the Iraqi prime minister, Mr Ayad Allawi, is also under tremendous pressure to ensure the vote goes ahead. The pressure comes from the US administration, which is eager to keep to its already delayed timetable for handing over power, and also from the influential Shia religious and political parties which are certain to dominate the new government.
"The majority of the Iraqi people want the election on time," said Mr Saad Jawad Qandil, head of the political bureau of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the leading Shia parties.
There are signs of compromise emerging. Mr Qandil said the Shia parties wanted to include Sunni politicians in the new government, regardless of how small a portion of the vote they won. - (Guardian Service)