The US administrator in Iraq has said it will not be possible to hold elections for a year to 15 months, putting him at odds with the country's most powerful religious leader, who has insisted any delay must be brief.
Paul Bremer, speaking in an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television channel, said Iraq needed time to prepare for elections.
"These technical problems will take time to fix -- we estimate somewhere between a year to 15 months ... There are real important technical problems why elections are not possible," Bremer said in excerpts of the interview broadcast yesterday.
"Iraq has no election law, it has no national commission to even establish a national law governing political parties, it has no voters' lists, it has not had a credible, reliable census for almost 20 years," he said. "There are no constituent boundaries to decide where elections would take place."
The interview with Bremer, who appeared to be speaking to Al Arabiya on Friday, will be aired in a regular programme tomorrow, the channel said in a news bulletin.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed the US position that it would not be feasible to hold elections before the planned US handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.
Iraq's powerful Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, widely seen as holding the key to Iraq's political future, said in an interview published on Friday that any delay should be brief and any interim government should have limited authority.
Asked how long polls should be delayed, he told Germany's Der Spiegel: "It should not last long."
Sistani had demanded direct elections before June 30 but recently agreed with a UN envoy that polls required adequate preparations.
Iraq's majority Shiites had protested by the tens of thousands in support of the reclusive Sistani's call for early elections this year, and they could take to the streets again if he expresses even mild criticism of Bremer's remarks.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS