Shiite Muslims plead with UN for early elections

Meanwhile, Japanese soldiers -- the vanguard of the main contingent of Japan's first military deployment to a combat zone since World War II -- woke up to their first full day in Iraq on a controversial humanitarian mission.

The leader of Iraq's main Shiite party said late Sunday he had submitted to UN experts a "scientific study" proving that elections can be held for the strife-torn country's first post-occupation government.

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"In my opinion it is possible and we have submitted a scientific study carried out by experts on the matter," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

The nine-member UN team arrived in Iraq Saturday for a 10-day visit to examin over a day whether polls can be organised before a June 30 handover of political power by the the US-led coalition to an Iraqi transitional authority.

Coalition officials and some Iraqi politicians argue that it is impossible to arrange a fair vote in the time available in a country suffocated by decades of dictatorship and lacking the necessary electoral infrastructure.

But Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has undermined the US plan for a transitional government elected by regional caucuses, and has been calling for direct elections to be held instead.

The UN experts are to call on Sistani during their 10-day visit, the first official mission of the international body in Iraq since it pulled out its staff following a deadly bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters last year.

The UN team is lead by Lakhdar Brahimi, the senior adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. It has already met the US administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, and members of the interim US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

According to Iraqi Communist Party chief and council member Hamid Mussa, a majority inside the Governing Council told the UN delegation that they favoured delaying elections till after the handover of political power.

"The majority (in the council) was in favor of being patient, so that elections can be well prepared on the technical, political and security level," he said.