Iraq's leading Shiite cleric has assigned top aides to take charge of efforts designed to ensure that Shiites win a majority in a crucial general election slated for early next year, according to well-placed Shiite figures.
The move by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani underscores the zeal with which the Shiite Muslim majority and its spiritual leader are embracing the January vote for a 275-seat assembly, whose primary task will be to draft a permanent constitution for this overwhelmingly Arab nation.
In contrast, many Sunni Arab rivals are apprehensive about the vote since it will confirm their loss of power after the ouster 19 months ago of their patron, Saddam Hussein. However, if heeded, rising calls by Sunni Arab clerics for a boycott of the election could cost the new government its necessary legitimacy.
Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's estimated 25 million people, have been the most keen Iraqis on elections. Emerging from decades of oppression by the Sunni Arabs, they see the January vote as the means to translate their superior numbers into political power.
To this end, top Shiite clerics, like al-Sistani, have not condoned armed resistance against U.S. and other foreign troops, something that many Sunni Arabs see as acquiescing the occupation.
Sunni Arabs have led the insurgency against the Americans and their allied Iraqi forces, winning the respect and admiration of their powerful community as well as sympathy and support from a Sunni-dominated Arab world that's strongly opposed to U.S. policies in Iraq.
But a boycott of the vote could cost them the important role they are seen to be qualified to play as members of a community with the vast expertise accumulated from centuries of domination.
The sources said al-Sistani, an Iranian-born cleric who enjoys the profound respect of Iraqi Shiites, has placed Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who nearly became Iraq's first postwar prime minister, in charge of negotiations with Shiite leaders and independent politicians over a single slate of candidates to contest the election.
Under Iraq's election laws, there will be no electoral boundaries for the January vote, with the whole country treated as a single constituency. Political parties will contest the vote by slates of candidates.
Individuals who wish to enter the fray as independents must secure the signature of at least 500 Iraqis who attest to their good character.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said half the 165 candidates' names on the list were set aside for political parties, while the other half assigned to independent Shiites. Al-Sistani, they added, had invited all Iraqis to join the list, but none accepted his offer — a sign of Iraq's growing entrenchment of its racial and ethnic divisions.
The negotiations are involving some of the biggest Shiite parties, like the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Dawa Party and the Iraqi National Congress. A Shiite movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr also is involved — the clearest sign to date that the radical cleric who has led two revolts against U.S. troops was prepared to join the political process.
The sources said an "initial" list of candidates was met with vehement opposition from political parties and that intense negotiations were underway to address their grievances. A major disagreement, they said, centered on what the parties see as the large number of independent Shiites on the list. Al-Sadr also was demanding that it be allowed to field more candidates than the roughly 20 his movement has been assigned.
Opposition to giving a large share to independent candidates harks back to the objection in May by the same parties to the nomination of al-Shahristani to become interim prime minister. It also suggests that U.S.-backed politicians who returned home last year after decades in exile abroad are not ready to loosen their strong grip on political power in postwar Iraq.
Ayad Allawi, a longtime exiled opposition leader, took the prime minister's job. But, ironically, his Iraq National Accord — an umbrella group of former Baathists and secular Shiite and Sunni politicians he formed with CIA assistance in 1991 — plans to contest the January vote with a separate slate of candidates than the one being put together by al-Sistani' aides, said the sources.
Allawi's move, they said, posed the danger of splitting the Shiite vote.