IRAQ: The Iraqi interim government announced yesterday the Iraqi national conference will go ahead on Saturday, in spite of an appeal by the UN to postpone the gathering, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad
Mr Fuad Masoom, president of the preparatory committee, said a delay was impossible because it would breach the Transitional Administrative Law, which fixed the end of this month as the deadline for this event. He said any delay would send out "negative signals" to the populace, which expects the government to implement the step-by-step programme for the creation of a fully representative government.
Mr Masoom said the government hoped the conference would "allow Iraq to reach the constitutional state and to be stabilised on the path of democracy, federalism and unity."
The conference will meet in Baghdad for two or three days to choose 100 representatives for an interim assembly to oversee the operations of the government, the drafting of a constitution and preparations for elections by the end of January 2005.
Mr Masoom said the conference would bring together most of Iraq's political parties, tribal leaders, representatives of civil society and other key figures.
He expressed the hope that women will account for 25 per cent of the 1,000 people invited to attend the conference as well as of other representative bodies, in accordance with the provisions of the law.
Iraq's 17 provinces will receive 548 seats, the 70 political parties 140 seats, and Baghdad, with its population of seven million, will have 130 members. The rest will go to members of non-govern- mental organisations. Invitations will be issued on Thursday to individuals rather than organisations. Although senior members of the banned Baath party will be excluded, former members from lower levels of that party will be amongst the invitees.
There has been lively criticism in the media of the selection process. In several provinces elections had to be cancelled and consensus candidates nominated, and there have been bitter contests in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, and the southern Shia holy city of Najaf.
Although Mr Masoom said these disputes had been resolved, two influential political groups are boycotting the conference: the followers of rebellious Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army battled US troops during April and May, and the Sunni supreme clerical council.
The idea of holding a national conference was initially put forward by the first US administrator in Iraq, Gen Jay Garner. He planned to convene a 500-member gathering in July 2003. But this proposal was dismissed by Mr Paul Bremer, who took over from Gen Garner in May 2003. A year later this idea was revived by the UN special envoy, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, during his mission to Iraq.
A member of one of the political parties scheduled to attend the meeting told The Irish Times that confusion reigns.
"We don't know anything. Who will attend and at what level - members or observers. Where the conference will meet."
While insisting he remains optimistic about the long-term future of his country, he said, "Six months ago I believed that Iraq would recover within three or four years from the misrule of the Baathist regime and the US war and occupation, but now I think it will take 10 years."
Several Iraqi businessmen at the exclusive Alwiya Club in central Baghdad said they were being excluded from reconstruction projects. "All the contracts are given to American companies who subcontract to other foreign firms. They bring in outsiders who take jobs that Iraqis should have. Unemployed Iraqis are joining the groups which attack the American forces, plant bombs and kidnap people."