Iraq councilor joins the call for direct vote

WASHINGTON -- A member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council yesterday added his voice to a growing chorus of demands for direct elections in the coming months.

"Do not seek to find a reason why elections are not possible," Ahmed Chalabi, one of the 25 members on the council, told a packed audience at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "Seek to make them possible, and they will be possible."

Chalabi called the US plan for choosing an interim government through regional caucuses, rather than direct elections, a "sure-fire way to have instability" and "not an easy concept to reconcile with democracy."

Some saw the comments by Chalabi, once a darling of the Pentagon, as a sign of the changing political winds in Iraq that are increasingly challenging the Bush administration's plans for Iraqi self-rule. Political power, once held by the Americans who are due to depart in June, has been shifting into the hands of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an influential Muslim cleric leading the Shi'ite majority who sparked a movement by demanding direct elections.

"I think what is happening is that they are realizing that elections are inevitable," said Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an independent research organization. "Chalabi has discovered that the Americans cannot put him in power. I think he has decided to get on the winning side."

In Iraq, Sistani demonstrated both his moderation and his power yesterday by calling on his followers in Iraq to stop protesting for direct elections until a United Nations delegation has finished its study of whether elections are feasible.

Chalabi, who met with President Bush on Tuesday and attended the State of Union address, said Bush indicated he was open to the possibility of holding direct elections in the coming months, as long as they do not jeopardize the June 30 deadline for transferring power to an independent Iraqi government.

"I think he will work with whatever plan is useful to choose representatives that are accepted by the Iraqi people," Chalabi told the Globe after his speech. "The US officials are committed to exploring this possibility." US officials said the Bush administration thinks it is logistically impossible to organize direct elections in the coming months and remains committed to selecting an interim government through a system of regional caucuses. But Sistani and Washington have said they would heed the advice of the UN delegation.

The impasse over elections provoked a flurry of negotiations in Washington, New York, and Baghdad this week, as US, Iraqi, and UN officials considered several options for the transition in Iraq.

One proposal is to "electoralize" the caucus process by holding a nationwide referendum on the caucuses or the decisions that the caucuses make, a US official said.

Another idea, recently put forth by Governing Council president Adnan Pachachi, is to expand the council to 125 members, drawing the additional representatives through a democratic process. The expanded council could take power July 1, then organize direct elections.

Holding direct elections before June 30 is extremely unlikely, but possible if the UN team arrives in Iraq and concludes that elections are feasible, two US officials said yesterday.

According to Chalabi and US officials, the only proposal that has been completely ruled out is extending the June 30 deadline by six months, a plan Sistani reportedly would have supported had direct elections been feasible in that time.

US officials have said elections are impossible before the June 30 deadline because of a lack of census information and voter lists. Privately, specialists inside and outside the administration say they fear that early elections could create chaos and elevate Shi'ites to political dominance at the expense of minority groups.

Yesterday afternoon, Chalabi disagreed on both counts, making a strong statement in support of holding elections before June that echoed the arguments of Sistani.

"The view that we hold in Iraq now is this: Democracy is associated with elections," Chalabi said. "What some people are trying to do now is to explain how we can have democracy without them. It's a hard thing to do."

Chalabi said that the idea of caucuses is "not an easy concept to reconcile with democracy" and that it was unclear that the caucus process would be "representative of the general population" or "guarantee the election of strong leaders."

"That, of course, is a surefire way to have instability because such people would not be able to withstand the various huge movements that would take place after sovereignty is established," he said.

Chalabi also said voter rolls would not be difficult to develop in Iraq, a former police state that kept far more sophisticated records of its citizens than did most countries faced with the task of organizing transitional elections.

"We have a Department of Census, which is staffed by very competent people, and they say that elections are possible," Chalabi said. "They have told Ayatollah Sistani that elections are possible. They have requested certain equipment and funding to work on a voter roll that will make elections possible quickly." Chalabi also said it took Kurds three months to organize elections in 1992, with mostly positive results. He added that direct elections would not lead Shi'ites to dominate other groups because political divisions exist among the Shi'ite themselves: "It is not an automatic political majority."

Chalabi, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who left Iraq as a child, lived abroad for four decades before returning under the protection of US soldiers after the American-led invasion.

Several analysts listening to Chalabi's speech yesterday saw it as an attempt by a man with little popular support within Iraq to join political forces with Sistani, a reclusive cleric who is rapidly becoming the most powerful man in Iraq. "Chalabi is a very experienced politician, and he needs support in Iraq," said Amatzia Baram, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace. "He's adopting Sistani's line."