Iraq elections ‘a serious challenge’

IRAQ’S deputy prime minister said holding elections in January will be “a serious challenge,” but he insisted yesterday they must go ahead as scheduled.

As part of the effort to address security concerns, US troops and Iraqi paramilitary police arrested 43 suspected insurgents in the city of Mosul, the military said. In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a car bomb killed six people and injured five others. Two American soldiers were injured in an attack on their convoy in Baghdad.

Barham Saleh said delaying the scheduled January 30 vote would have “serious ramifications to the political process” and would bolster the cause of terrorists.

“Under the law it cannot be postponed and the government is working on the premise that the elections will be held on time,” Saleh told the BBC.

Iraq’s continuing insurgency is hampering reconstruction and threatens the elections. US officials and their British allies see the polls as a key step toward returning power to Iraqis, a prerequisite for withdrawing occupation forces.

Sunni Muslim politicians have called for postponing the election, although the country’s powerful Shiite clergy and the interim government oppose a delay.

The spokesman for interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, said Saturday the government was sticking by the January 30 date after receiving assurances from the Iraqi Electoral Commission that an election could take place even in Sunni areas wracked by the insurgency.