Three telephone calls within a week between President George W. Bush and the Iraqi leadership underline the determination of the White House to see parliamentary elections take place on January 30 in spite of concerns over the turnout, according to officials and analysts in Washington.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said on Tuesday that in their latest conversation Mr Bush and Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, were “making sure” that thetimetable set by the Iraqi election commission was holding.
No one expected the elections to be perfect, Mr McClellan added.
Mr Allawi, the US-favoured candidate in the elections, acknowledged in Baghdad that “some pockets” of Iraq would not be safe enough for people to vote, but that they should not be widespread.
Insurgents on Tuesday killed 20 people in Iraq. The incidents included an attack on a police headquarters in the Sunni town of Tikrit, killing seven officers, Reuters reports, and the killing of eight Iraqis in a minibus in Yussifiyah, just south of Baghdad. A gas pipeline between Kirkuk and Beiji refinery was also hit, according to Associated Press.
As the violence has intensified, Mr Bush also spoke to Mr Allawi last week, as well as to President Ghazi al-Yawar shortly after he suggested the elections should be delayed.
US military commanders say four of 18 provinces, mostly Sunni areas, are unsafe for voting at present. Some Sunni groups have called for a boycott. However, the clerical and political leadership of the Shia majority insists that the polls go ahead.
Diplomats said the US-led coalition in Iraq was looking at ways to secure a role for the Sunni Arabs in the drafting of a permanent constitution even if they emerge under-represented in the parliament chosen on January 30 because of low turnout.
The most important role of the future 275-member national assembly is to draft the constitution that is to be put to a national referendum by October. The US and the Iraqi election commission rejected proposals that parliamentary seats be added or set aside for unelected Sunnis. But diplomats said unelected Sunni leaders would be added to the committees drafting the constitution. Analysts in Washington said the main Shia parties and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shia cleric, were receptive to proposals that they co-opt eminent Sunnis into the drafting process. The US is also looking for the United Nations to play the leading advisory role on the drafting of the constitution. Sunni leaders will be offered seats in the cabinet regardless of how they do in the elections.
The Shia list of candidates expected to win the largest number of votes is heavily influenced by religious figures, but two technocrats appear to be the most likely candidates for prime minister Hussein Shahrestani, a former nuclear scientist close to Ayatollah Sistani, and Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the finance minister who is also a senior official in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
