Bremer's plan calls for caucuses in the country's 18 provinces to choose representatives to serve on a transitional assembly, which would form a provisional government. Participants in the caucuses must be approved by 11 of 15 people on an organizing committee, which will be selected by the Governing Council and U.S.-appointed councils at the city and province level.
Hakim and other Shiite leaders, who worry that the organizing committees may exclude religious figures, want assembly members to be directly elected. At the very least, they are demanding that the organizing committees be disbanded and any qualified candidate be allowed to participate in the caucuses.
One of Sistani's main objections, Hakim said, "is the absence of any role for the Iraqi people in the transfer of power to Iraqis." Although U.S. officials have argued that holding elections would be too disruptive, time-consuming and complicated in the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls, Hakim insisted elections for the transitional assembly would be possible in 80 percent of Iraq.
In other words, Bremer wants a variety of "electoral college" situation (except where the electors aren't elected but are chosen--by whom, I wonder?), where a few [approved] people get to elect an assembly, and Hakim/Sistani want an election where everyone gets a vote, at least in 80 percent of the country. Guess those Muslims just don't get what "democracy" means, they definitely need some training. |
