Clerics whip up support for poll

[La_Serpiente]

Clerics whip up support for poll

The call for popular elections reverberated from mosques throughout the Shia Muslim south of Iraq yesterday, as the country's Shia clergy lined up behind Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in a political showdown with the US-led coalition.

At Friday prayers, clerics who usually begin their sermons with a word or two about current issues made clear that the faithful should support Mr Sistani's call for elections to a national transitional assembly next May. Mr Sistani's demand is in opposition to US plans to have assembly members chosen by provincial caucuses.

"The coalition says they want to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people, and the quickest way is through elections!" shouted Seyed Sadr al Din al Qubunchi, imam of the Mosque of Imam Ali in the holy city of Najaf yesterday.

Mr Sistani, supreme spiritual leader of Iraq's Shia Muslims, last Sunday issued a fatwa - a religious edict - saying the US plan for selecting members of the assembly, which will in turn elect a provisional government to take power on June 30, was "not properly representative".

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Clerics whip up support for poll

[Old and In the Way]

1. Here comes the democracy Bush apparently wanted.

Between the Iraq fatwa and the tenuous grip on power that Musharif has, I wonder if we seeing the beginning of a Pan-Islamic uprising against the infidels? I hope our Republican Guard are up to the task of defending Halliburton's interests.