NAJAF, Nov 28: The religious leader of Iraq’s Shias, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, on Thursday called for immediate elections at all levels of the administration, dealing a major blow to the US-led authority’s plans for an accelerated handover of power.

The top leader rejected Washington’s insistence that elections of any sort were impossible before 2005, arguing that the ration-card system in force here for more than a decade gave ample basis for an electoral register.

Ayatollah Sistani “wants the Iraqi people to be consulted”, the current head of the US-installed interim Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, told reporters after a meeting with the top religious leader in this holy city.

“He wants elections to be held for the municipal councils as well as the legislative council,” said Mr Talabani, a pro-US Kurdish politician.

The Shia leader’s demand hit at the heart of the US plans for a rapid transfer of sovereignty by highlighting the gap between its promises of democracy and the arcane system of indirect selection by caucus it has created to establish a caretaker government by June next year.

Abandoning its previous insistence on prior elections under a constitution approved by referendum, the council announced on Nov 15 that it would hand over power to a government designated by a transitional assembly chosen by caucuses of selected notables to be convened in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Ayatollah Sistani was not slow to play up the conflict between the rhetoric and the reality of the electoral system the US-led administration has established in its haste to address mounting criticism of its prolonged occupation.

“For Ayatollah Sistani, the current councils were not elected, and he has requested that the occupation forces keep their promises,” said Mr Talabani, who signed this month’s agreement with the occupation administration on behalf of the interim leadership.

The administration has long argued that elections are impractical, whether to a legislature or a constitutional convention, because Iraq has no reliable electoral register and no census since 1970.

It says neither will be possible before 2005, because of the security situation and the lack of a professional Iraqi civil service to conduct it impartially.

But the ayatollah insisted that polls could still be held on the basis of the ration cards distributed to the population since 1991, to help cope with the impact of the UN sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The ration cards are issued by household and give only the number, not the ages, of household members, but as a basis for establishing a caretaker government it would be a closer approximation of democracy than the caucuses proposed by the occupation authority.

The ration system was administered under the supervision of the United Nations and is therefore thought to be relatively fair.

Population experts say it can also be double-checked by counting households in sample districts from aerial photographs.

In a first reaction to Ayatollah Sistani’s position, the administration said it was “listening” to all points of view expressed by Iraqis.

“We are in the process of establishing a democracy in this country, democracy is about listening to people and that’s what we’re doing,” said its main civilian spokesman, Charles Heatly. “There is a lot of dialogue.”

The opposition from Shia religious parties marked the first time the community had seriously flexed its muscles against the occupation authority.

The Shias had hitherto given the US-led forces a relatively easy ride.

In the capital, there have been sporadic clashes with radical supporters of Shia leader Moqtada Sadr, whose faction swiftly welcomed Ayatollah Sistani’s position.

“All bodies that are not elected will be deemed illegitimate,” a spokesman said.

But the persistent resistance that has dogged US soldiers for the past seven months has raged largely in the Sunni belt that extends north and west from Baghdad, where support for Saddam Hussein’s government ran high.—AFP