A United Nations mission is to arrive in Iraq shortly to study demands for rapid elections issued by a senior Shia Muslim cleric, a Western official linked to the mission told AFP Saturday.
The UN mission will look into demands by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the US-led coalition abandon plans to hand over to an unelected provisional government in June in favour of nation-wide polls, the official said, requesting anonymity.
"The UN has been approached by Ayatollah Sistani and now by the coalition to send a mission to evaluate the feasibility of holding general elections."
The official said the details of the mission would be thrashed out Monday at talks in New York between UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Iraq's interim Governing Council and US overseer Paul Bremer.
One of the Governing Council members who will be taking part in the meeting is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the main Shia religious party, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Hakim's son and spokesman Mohsen made clear his father would use the talks to press Sistani's demands.
"Of course, he is going to explain and defend the progressive view held by Grand Ayatollah Sistani to hold free and countrywide elections," Hakim junior told reporters in Tehran.
He said the religious hierarchy was keen to hear the UN's assessment but would insist on an approximation of democracy that gave the Shias the chance to flex their electoral weight even if the evaluation team ruled it was impossible to prepare normal polls.
"Grand Ayatollah Sistani said he would consider changing this position he has presented only if an expert group sent by the United Nations officially concludes, based on their field survey, that organising free and nation-wide elections in Iraq is not possible," said Mohsen.
"If this is the case, then His Holiness will present another option that is close to organising free elections.
"Based on the view of Iraqi and international experts, Iraq is capable of holding an election within the next six months."
Tens of thousands of Shias have rallied behind the reclusive cleric, who has emerged as a vocal thorn in the side of the US-led coalition in the wake of the overthrow of his former tormentor, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.
Both Bremer and the United Nations have previously warned that Iraq lacks the basics for holding nationwide elections, with no electoral law in place and no population census on which to base an electoral register.
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