WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (AFP) - Iraq's landmark election planned for January 30 should not be delayed even if all Iraqis are not able to participate, a senior US Senator said Sunday.
Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said establishing democracy in Iraq was never going to be an easy task.
"I think we should back (Iraqi) Prime Minister Allawi and say January 30th is the date," Lugar said in an interview with Fox News.
"Getting to democracy in Iraq was always going to be a real challenge. It hasn't lessened. But at the same time, to delay all of this seems to me simply to bide the fact that it's not going to occur at all," Lugar said, referring to the poll.
Lugar spoke in favor of sticking to January 30 after a minister from the party of senior Iraqi statesman Adnan Pachachi said Iraq's interim government could back delaying the election despite clear opposition from Washington and the majority Shiites.
"In the coming days, the cabinet will meet to examine and probably approve a postponement," Planning Minister Mehdi al-Hafez told AFP on Sunday.
Hafez is close to Pachachi, who led a call by 17 organisations -- including 10 leading political parties -- for the January 30 election to be postponed by six months over security concerns.
Lugar has just returned here from the Ukraine where the Republican lawmaker monitored the hotly disputed polls, partly at the urging of President George W. Bush.
11/28/2004 15:28 GMT - AFP