by Jennie Matthew
BAGHDAD, July 27 (AFP) - Serious efforts must be made if Iraq's national conference is to succeed in building a political consensus and tackling violence, UN advisers warned Tuesday.
Although the Iraqi organisers of the vast democratic experiment said the conference would open as expected on July 31, UN adviser Jamal Benomar said the event should have been postponed until next month.
Delay was essential to "ensure that the conference is as representative and as inclusive as possible and ... that a genuine national dialogue takes place," he said.
The extra time would enable a proper public information campaign to take place and ensure participants are more representative.
Four days may not prove long enough, he stressed.
But the chairman of the conference's preparatory committee, Fuad Massum, strongly disagreed.
"Our credibility is on the line and any delay would be viewed negatively," he told a news conference, as he announced the Saturday start-date.
Some 1,000 participants from various political movements, tribes and regions are to select a 100-member interim national council that will advise the government until elections can be held in January.
Until then, the council will have powers to approve the 2005 budget, veto legislation with a two-thirds majority, question ministers and pick a new president or deputy president if one of them dies in office.
There was huge pressure for the conference to be held before the US-led occupation was formally wrapped up late last month, particularly from Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.
But the United Nations ruled the timetable was too tight and July was the compromise.
Although convening in the autumn may have allowed organisers more time to prepare, given that the government will disband after elections in January, it was politically impossible.
Serious debate should take place at the conference on security, reconstruction, Iraq's future political process, elections, human rights and justice, Benomar said.
The elected 100-strong legislative council would otherwise be little better than the coalition-installed interim Governing Council that was wound up earlier this year, he warned.
Observers criticised the appointment as head of the organizing committee of a politician like Massum, who represents the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish former rebel groups, instead of an independent technocrat.
Given the monumental task of introducing democratic overtures for the first time in decades, teething problems were only to be expected.
Nevertheless, sources close to the event have been frustrated by what they call a serious lack of organisation, a failure to publish guidelines and kickstart a publicity campaign.
"Iraqis need to build a consensus to overcome the temptation to engage in non-peaceful means," Benomar told AFP.
The United Nations has overseen numerous national conferences all over the world and advised Iraqi officials on lessons learnt the hard way.
"Some were successful and some failed, leading to tremendous strife and upheaval in the country," said Benomar.
Zaire and Togo provide potent examples of mass unrest after national conferences broke down in the early 1990s, another UN aide told AFP.
But while the Iraqi government has criticised the United Nations for not mobilising more personnel and resources to help, the world body said it was reluctant to hijack an event that should be organised by Iraqis.
In Iraq's Shiite heartland Sunday, radical leader Moqtada Sadr boycotted elections to the conference, as voters complained they were being barred from voting and that the candidate list had been drawn up in secret.
Sources close to the process were nevertheless confident that the cleric would be represented along with other critical radicals reluctant to cold-shoulder the conference.
Massum brushed aside concerns that the election process was rife with irregularities and dominated by the major political parties.