The US administrator in Iraq has said it will not be possible to hold elections for a year to 15 months, putting him at odds with the country's most powerful religious leader who has insisted any delay must be brief.
Mr Paul Bremer, speaking in an interview with the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television channel, said Iraq needed time to prepare for elections.
"These technical problems will take time to fix - we estimate somewhere between a year to 15 months...There are real important technical problems why elections are not possible," Mr Bremer said.
"Iraq has no election law, it has no national commission to even establish a national law governing political parties, it has no voters' lists, it has not had a credible, reliable census for almost 20 years," he said. "There are no constituent boundaries to decide where elections would take place."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed the US position that it would not be feasible to hold elections before the planned American handover of power to Iraqis on June 30th.
Iraq's powerful Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, widely seen as holding the key to Iraq's political future, said in an interview published yesterday that any delay should be brief and any interim government should have limited authority.
Ayatollah Sistani had demanded direct elections before June 30 but recently agreed with a UN envoy that polls required adequate preparations.