Iraqis call for action on elections

IRAQI leaders said yesterday they want to start planning elections immediately, after the United Nations estimated it would take eight months to organise a nationwide ballot.

In the meantime, UN officials must offer a way of choosing the provisional government due to take power from the US-led coalition on June 30, a Shiite Muslim party official said. Shiites led the push for elections, but Monday’s UN report said Iraq couldn’t hold them until January 2005.

“If there is no election ... who is going to take over sovereignty from the Coalition Authority? Iraqi people need to know,” said Hamed al-Bayati, a spokesman for Iraq’s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.