Iraq's most revered Shia leader insisted on Sunday that democratic elections be held within months, denting US hopes of winning his crucial backing for Washington's plan for handing back sovereignty to Iraqis.
Officials from the US-appointed Governing Council went to the Shia Muslim city of Najaf on Sunday to meet Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and try to persuade him to back the US plan.
Under the plan, regional caucuses will select a transitional Iraqi assembly by the end of May, and the assembly will select an interim government that will take over sovereignty by the end of June. Full elections and a constitution will follow in 2005.
Sistani wants the transitional assembly to be directly elected, and refused to back down after meeting the Council officials. If he does not support the US plan, many of Iraq's majority Shia may well refuse to accept the process.
"The ideal mechanism for this is elections which a number of experts confirm can be held within coming months with an acceptable degree of credibility and transparency," Sistani's office quoted him as telling the Governing Council delegation.
"If the transitional assembly is formed by a mechanism that doesn't have the necessary legitimacy, it wouldn't be possible for the government to perform a useful function...New problems will arise as a result of this that will only worsen the tensions in the political and security situation."
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