csua.org/u/ai8 -> www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/international/middleeast/26diplo.html?hp&ex=1104123600&en=82e04fe0e651800c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
ELECTIONS US Is Suggesting Guaranteed Role for Iraq's Sunnis Families returning to Falluja have cars searched by United States marines . Assuring voter turnout in such Sunni towns worries election planners. Omar Khodor/Reuters Families returning to Falluja have cars searched by United States marines . Assuring voter turnout in such Sunni towns worries election planners.
An even more radical step, one that a Western diplomat said was raised al ready with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revere d Shiite cleric, is the possibility of adding some of the top vote-gette rs among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if the y lose to non-Sunni candidates. The diplomat said even some Shiite politicians who were followers of Ayat ollah Sistani were concerned that a Pyrrhic victory by Shiites, effectiv ely shutting Sunni Arabs out of power, could alienate Sunnis and lead to more internal strife. Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraqis and we re generally denied power under Saddam Hussein. Strife was still the word in Baghdad, where the death toll from the explo sion of a tanker truck on Christmas Eve rose to nine on Saturday, with 1 9 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. No group has taken responsibility for the attack, which apparently did not damage any obvious insurgent t argets.
The idea of adding Sunnis to the legislature after the election was ackno wledged by officials as likely to be difficult to carry out, but they sa id it might be necessary to avoid Sunni estrangement. Sunnis Arabs make up about 20 percent of the population and formed the co re of Mr Hussein's power structure. Much of the violent insurgency is taking place in Sunni-dominated areas i n the central part of the country, and some Sunni leaders have called fo r a boycott of the election. This has led to fears that large numbers of Sunnis will obey the call or be afraid to vote. "There's some flexibility in approaching this problem," said an administr ation official. "There's a willingness to play with the end result - not changing the numbers, but maybe guaranteeing that a certain number of s eats go to Sunni areas even if their candidates did not receive a certai n percentage of the vote." The idea of altering election results is so sensitive that administration officials who spoke about it did not want their names revealed. Some ex perts on Iraq say such talk could undercut efforts to drum up support fo r voting in Sunni areas. Guaranteeing a certain number of positions in government for certain ethn ic groups is not without precedent, though. Lebanon, for example, has a power-sharing arrangement among its main sectarian groups. The Parliamen t in Iran has seats reserved for religious minorities. It was not known whether Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, had been consulted about the possibility of taking such action. Any suggestion of delaying the elections because Sunnis are reluctant to vote has been knocked down by President Bush and other administration of ficials. An administration official said, for example, that when King Ab dullah II of Jordan visited Mr Bush earlier this month, the president b egan the meeting by telling the king to not even raise the issue of post poning the elections because it was beyond consideration. Instead, Mr B ush has pressed King Abdullah and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries to spread the word to Sunnis in Iraq to support their c andidates and to vote. Secretary of State Colin L Powell and other top officials have said in t he past week that they were generally pleased with indications that an o verwhelming majority of Iraqis wanted to vote and that many well-known S unni leaders were running for office, despite the calls for a boycott by other prominent Sunnis. But there are also American-made factors hobbling full participation in t he election. Administration officials say, for example, that one reason why some Sunni s are not running is that they have refused to sign documents renouncing their former affiliation with the Baath Party of Mr Hussein, as demand ed by Iraqi authorities.
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