An aide to Iraq's foremost Shiite cleric said the spiritual leader might issue a religious edict rejecting a US-backed government if his demands for direct elections are ignored.
The warning came Thursday as tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims rallied in Basra to protest a US-backed formula for choosing Iraq's new legislature.
The turnout in Basra, 550km southeast of Baghdad, estimated by British soldiers at up to 30,000, was the biggest protest organized by Shiite clerics against the power transfer plan.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and other clerics wield vast influence among Iraq's Shiites, believed to comprise about 60 percent of the country's 25 million people.
"The large crowd before you today are expressing their feeling that they don't want anything imposed on them," said cleric Ali al-Mussawi al-Safi, al-Sistani's representative in Basra. "We want to affirm our rights. We want elections in all political domains."
The US wants regional caucuses to choose a new parliament, which will then select an Iraqi administration. It says security is too poor and voter records too incomplete for fair elections.
Instead, the Nov. 15 agreement provides for parliament members to be selected in 18 regional caucuses. The legislature would then choose a new, sovereign administration to take office by July 1.
The clerics want direct elections, fearing the caucuses may be rigged to keep Shiites out of power.
The US is also wary of elections because of who might win. With Iraq in turmoil, Islamic radicals or Saddam Hussein's Baath party might dominate a vote simply because they have the best organizations.
Protesters, virtually all of them male, chanted, "Yes, yes to elections! Yes, yes to al-Sistani!" Later, they sat on the pavement listening to robed and turbaned clerics rail against the US plan.
Faced with al-Sistani's objections, US administrator Paul Bremer left Baghdad for Washington on Thursday for consultations with US President George W. Bush and his senior national security advisers.
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