To reiterate, while a constitution is important, so is the constitutional process that arrives at the constitution. If the constitution is to work, it can't (IMO) be imposed from the outside. And it certainly can't be held to a timetable governed by the election calendar in another country. Sistani made a shrewd move in calling for the UN "to determine whether early democratic elections in Iraq are feasible". (see Message 19591559 )
He certainly knows about
U.S. officials rejected plan for Iraqi census
Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the country's entire population next summer and prepare a voter roll that would open the way to national elections in September. But U.S. officials say they rejected the idea, and Iraqi Governing Council members say they never saw the plan.
The practicality of national elections is the subject of intense debate among Iraqi and U.S. officials, who are trying to move forward on a plan to give Iraqis sovereignty next summer. As the U.S. occupation officials rejected the plan to compile a voter roll rapidly, they also argued to the Governing Council that the lack of a voter roll meant national elections were impractical.
The American plan for Iraqi sovereignty proposes instead a series of caucus-style, indirect elections. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, is calling for national elections in June, not the indirect balloting specified in the American plan. But U.S. officials and some Iraqis say the country is not ready for national elections, in part because the logistics are too daunting.
In October, Nuha Yousef, the census director, finished the plan for a quick census, which lays out the timetable in tabular form over several pages. "After processing the data, the most important thing is the election roll, and that would be available Sept. 1," she said. Full results would come in December.
Charles Heatly, a spokesman for the occupation authorities, said the Americans knew about the census proposal but decided against pursuing it.
"Rushing into a census in this time frame with the security environment that we have would not give the result that people want," he said.
Informed of the proposal this week, several members of the Governing Council who advocated a direct national ballot next June 30 said they were upset that they had not seen it. The Census Bureau said it had delivered the plan to the Governing Council on Nov. 1, but apparently it was lost in the bureaucracy.
"This could have changed things," said T. Hamid al-Bayati, a senior aide to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Governing Council member who announced last week that Shiite religious leaders opposed the indirect elections.
Perhaps, he and others suggested, some council members would have argued last month that the vote on self-government should be delayed until September when the voter roll became available. Some Iraqis have said they wonder why U.S. officials called for caucus elections in June, in part because a census could not be completed in less than a year, while at the same time rejecting a plan to produce a census more quickly.
Louay Hagi, who oversees the Census Bureau in the Planning Ministry, said the plan was not rushed. In an interview, he said his staff had prepared a detailed timetable for a census that was stripped down from the 73 questions asked in the last census six years ago to 12 basic demographic queries, enabling the work to be done much faster than the normal two-year time frame.
As it has in the past, the bureau would use 400,000 school teachers to visit every household in Iraq on one day, June 30, said Yousef, the census director. The plan would cost $75 million, Hagi said, in part to buy 2,500 computers. "We sent the plan to the Governing Council on Nov. 1 and asked for an answer by Nov. 15," he said. "We are still waiting for a response."
iht.com
Thus, by calling for the UN imprimatur, which he knows will not be forthcoming, Sustani is effectively saying to Bremer, checkmate.
JMO
lurqer |
