One year on: UN seeks Iraq role

By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

A year after 1,000 kilograms of explosives devastated its headquarters in Baghdad, the United Nations is back in Iraq hoping to play a discreet but key role in steering the country to elections in January.

Seeking a role: UN representative Ashraf Jehangir Qazi with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

The explosion, at 1630 local time on 19 August 2003, killed 22 people, among them the UN's Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose office lay directly above the blast.

Now his successor, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, a senior Pakistani diplomat, has gone to Baghdad to try to ensure a UN influence on the political process. He arrived in time for the conference to choose an Interim Council.

It is not an easy task. For a start, the risk to UN staff remains high. So Mr Qazi will have to operate behind the scenes. There will be no return to a high-profile headquarters. No nation has come forward with an offer to protect UN personnel.

There is even some doubt as to whether the 31 January 2005 deadline for elections will hold. It has already slipped from an initial date in December. The arrangements might not have been made in time. Security might not have improved enough.

Questions over UN role

In addition, Mr Qazi has to overcome doubts about the UN's role and indeed his own position. He is seen by some as too close to the United States, having just been Pakistani ambassador there.

The UN will have a significant role, especially in co-ordinating the efforts to organise the elections Les Campbell, National Democratic Institute

The world organisation was by-passed by the US and Britain in the invasion, has been attacked by the Iraqi insurgency and is regarded with suspicion by many Iraqis who remember its sanctions during the years of Saddam Hussein.

However, it is still able to command respect among Iraqi political leaders, largely because these leaders need international recognition as they try to move towards constitutional government.

The UN Security Council gave its approval to the effort when it extended the mandate for the Assistance Mission to Iraq for another 12 months on 12 August.

Mr Qazi will try to build on the work of the UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and experienced UN hand, who helped establish the interim Iraqi government on 30 June this year.

Elections the priority

Probably the most important task facing him is to help Iraq hold elections by the end of January.

"The UN will have a significant role, especially in coordinating the efforts to organise the elections," said Les Campbell, regional director of the American organisation the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), which is helping to train Iraqis to develop an electoral system.

"More is going on than meets the eye and gets onto the television news," Mr Campbell told BBC News Online.

"We are obviously concerned about the violence but there is such a demand for an election. Iraqis really really want the election. It's the only thing to legitimise a government."

Stability

The election in January is seen by many observers as the best chance of the country achieving some stability. The present interim government is not elected and lacks popular appeal.

But even so, the January vote will not be the end of the political process. The election will set up a transitional government and national assembly, as they will be called. A constitution will then have to be written and voted on in a referendum before full elections in December 2005.

The transitional government and assembly will have much more power than the current interim administration.

But only by 31 December 2005 at the earliest is Iraq scheduled to have a fully elected constitutional government - and even then the process could be delayed by a further year if the constitution is not approved.

The presence of an effective UN mediator during this whole period could be very important.

Practical advice

On a practical basis, the UN has much work to do in helping to organise the actual voting in January.

This election will work as long as Iraqis start to trust the process [and recognise] that the possibilities of retaliation against them are going to be minimised Carla Perelli, UN

It acts an adviser to the Iraqi Electoral Commission which is in charge of planning the election. Commission members and staff were sent by the UN on a two-week training course in Mexico earlier this summer.

Carla Perelli, director of the UN's Electoral Assistance Division, said recently that she believed that "a silent majority" of Iraqis was ready to vote if "they were certain that there's not going to be a retribution or a retaliation."

"The whole issue of fear is going to be a theme in this election. This election will work as long as Iraqis start to trust the process [and recognise] that the possibilities of retaliation against them are going to be minimised, that the electoral authority is going to play a fair game and that the vulnerable will be able to express their voice."

This would be a major test for the UN, she said, and the first hurdle would be the registration of voters which is supposed to start in September at the latest.

The UN will be helped by non-government organisations in a voter education drive.

Les Campbell of the NDI said that civil society groups were springing up in Iraq and that 379 political parties had been identified. His organisation and others had held training sessions both in Iraq and in Jordan, he said, and were preparing radio and TV spots to inform voters about the new system.

"I think we will have an election, even if it is a bit chaotic," he predicted.