U.N. envoy sees progress in Iraq vote dispute
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Lakhdar Brahimi, right, talks to the media prior to meeting with Iraqi Sunni Muslim clerics including Dr. Muhamed Bashar Al-Faidi, left.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi indicated on Friday that logistical reasons might prevent direct elections for an Iraqi transitional legislature being held before the June 30 handover.
He said his team is "working on what are the minimum requirements for a reasonably credible election" not beholden to a time frame.
Speaking to reporters, Brahimi said that Iraqi officials clearly believe there is a better alternative to the U.S.-backed caucus system.
"What I think we have agreed to is that elections are terribly important but holding reasonably credible elections is extremely important. The date of the elections have got to be consistent with this requirement," Brahimi said.
Brahimi, who is heading a U.N. team looking into the feasibility of holding elections in Iraq before the transfer of power this summer, said the group will submit a report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on how Iraqis should proceed. Recommendations are set to be issued in the coming days.
The diplomats spoke to hundreds of Iraqis, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the influential Shiite cleric who created a snag in the U.S.-backed political handover plan by opposing caucuses and supporting direct elections.
Brahimi said the team is trying to balance the need for a timely return to sovereignty with the appropriate organization of elections. He said there is also the issue of who would assume sovereignty if the June 30 deadline stays.
"I hope that soon Iraq will be able to organize perfect elections, but I think most Iraqis will settle for a little less than that, but not too much less because otherwise the election will not be credible."
Brahimi said he will be returning to New York "talking about something provisional. Something that is not going to last very long and something that is not going to have extensive powers."
The United States and the Governing Council officials set up the caucus system because the complicated legal and logistical process for developing elections could not be done in a matter of months. The U.S.-backed handover plan, however, does call for direct elections in 2005.
Brahimi indicated that the caucus plan does not have great support among Iraqi officials, saying "I think the people who put it together realize it needs at the very least to be improved considerably."
At the same time, he raised the same issues Americans have raised while developing the caucus plan, questioning the feasibility of organizing direct elections over the next few months in a country wracked by war for years.
"The demand for an election is legitimate request, but Iraqis must know elections are a very complicated process and that the benefits hoped for cannot be achieved unless good preparations for such elections," he said.
Brahimi said the United Nations "would like to be present in every step of the way" in the elections process, and said the U.N. would like to reestablish itself in Iraq one day if there is proper security. The U.N. pulled out its staff after the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August.
The envoy was asked about the dangers of civil war in Iraq, a country with three large distinct ethnic groups -- Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, and Kurds.
He said he is "a little bit disturbed, a little bit uneasy because there are very, very serious tensions" in Iraq and pointed to the civil warfare in Lebanon and his homeland, Algeria -- places where no one thought there would be such conflict.
"Civil wars are not started by people through a decision. ... Civil wars happen because people are reckless, because people are selfish, because groups think more of themselves than they do of the benefit of their country."
