BAGHDAD, June 30: A top Iraqi religious authority perceived as a “moderate” has come out against the drafting of a new constitution by a US-named body, dealing a major blow to US civil administrator Paul Bremer’s political plans.
The drawing-up of a constitution for post-Saddam Hussein Iraq must be preceded by general elections, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in a fatwa issued on Monday.
“The (occupation) authorities are not entitled to name the members of the assembly charged with drafting the constitution,” said Sistani’s edict, terming the US plan “unacceptable.”
Mr Bremer told Iraqi political groups at the beginning of June that a future Iraqi interim administration, to be set up by mid-July, would be led by a 25-to 30-strong political council that would name “key advisers” to ministries.
The interim body would work in parallel with a separate, much larger convention that would draw up a new Iraqi constitution.
“There is no guarantee that such a convention will draft a constitution upholding the Iraqi people’s interests and expressing their national identity, founded on Islam and lofty social values,” said Ayatollah Sistani, who is based in Najaf, 130kms south of Baghdad.
He called for general elections to be held “so that every eligible Iraqi can elect his representatives to the assembly that will draft the constitution.”
Once the document is finalized, it should be put to a referendum, he added.
Sistani’s representative in Baghdad, Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr, said the senior leader’s view was shared by the Hawza, the foremost Shia establishment.
“The Hawza and Ayatollah Sistani believe that those who will draft the nation’s constitution must be elected — and this is also the view of the people,” Sadr said.
But he stressed that Iraqi-US differences over Iraq’s political future should be resolved by dialogue.
Attacks against US forces are not the proper way of resolving differences with a power which “rid the Iraqis of a regime that oppressed them for 35 years,” Sadr said.
Sadr met here Monday with the UN special representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who had called on Sistani at his seat in Najaf Saturday.
According to participants at the meeting, Sistani asked the UN envoy to convey his views on the future constitution to Bremer, given that the Hawza has no direct contacts with the US occupation forces.
A spokesman for the Pentagon-backed Iraqi National Congress (INC) meanwhile said the constitution issue was raised during a meeting between Sistani and INC chief Ahmad Chalabi in Najaf Monday.
Sistani again stressed that the assembly which would draft the constitution “should be a purely Iraqi body picked by the Iraqi people,” the spokesman said.
The meeting was the first between Chalabi, a secular Shiite, and the 73-year-old leading Iraqi cleric of Iranian origin who suffered years of house arrest under Saddam.
Although the INC, which spearheaded opposition to Saddam, has long been close to Washington, it has also been critical of Bremer’s plans for the interim administration which dropped a promised national conference and sidelined a council of former opposition parties of which it is a member.
The INC has demanded that Iraqis be allowed to choose their own government.
Vieira de Mello told AFP he also met in Najaf with two other Shiite religious dignitaries, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, as part of his mission to “listen to (various) viewpoints, advise the (US-led) coalition, and keep the UN Security Council informed” about the political situation in Iraq. —AFP