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The religious leader of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, demanded immediate elections at all levels of the Iraqi administration in a major blow to the US-led coalition's plans for an accelerated handover of power.

The top cleric rejected the coalition's insistence that elections of any sort were impossible before 2005, arguing that the ration-card system in force here for more than a decade gave ample basis for an electoral register.

An undated file photo shows Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in Iraq.   [AFP]

Sistani "wants the Iraqi people to be consulted," the current head of the US-installed interim Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, told reporters after a meeting with the top cleric in this central holy city.

"He wants elections to be held for the municipal councils as well as the legislative council," said Talabani, a pro-US Kurdish politician.

The Shiite cleric's demand hit at the heart of the coalition's plans for a rapid transfer of sovereignty by highlighting the gap between its promises of post-Saddam democracy and the arcane system of indirect selection by caucus it has created to establish a caretaker government by June next year.

Abandoning its previous insistence on prior elections under a constitution approved by referendum, the coalition announced on November 15 that it would hand over power to a government designated by a transitional assembly chosen by caucuses of selected notables to be convened in each of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Sistani was not slow to play up the conflict between the coalition's rhetoric and the reality of the electoral system the coalition has established in its haste to address mounting criticism of its prolonged occupation.

"For Ayatollah Sistani, the current councils were not elected, and he has requested that the occupation forces keep their promises," said Talabani, who signed this month's agreement with the coalition on behalf of the interim leadership.

The coalition has long argued that elections are impractical, whether to a legislature or a constitutional convention, because Iraq has no reliable electoral register and no census since 1970.

It says neither will be possible before 2005, because of the security situation and the lack of a professional Iraqi civil service to conduct it impartially.

But Sistani insisted that polls could still be held on the basis of the ration cards distributed to the population since 1991, to help cope with the impact of the UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The ration cards are issued by household and give only the number not the ages of household members but as a basis for a establishing a caretaker government it would be a closer approximation of democracy than the caucuses proposed by the coalition.

The ration system was administered under the supervision of the United Nations (news - web sites) and is therefore thought to be relatively fair.

Population experts say it can also be double-checked by counting households in sample districts from aerial photographs.

In a first reaction to Sistani's position, the coalition said it was "listening" to all points of view expressed by Iraqis.

"We are in the process of establishing a democracy in this country, democracy is about listening to people and that's what we're doing," said its main civilian spokesman, Charles Heatly.

"There is a lot of dialogue," he said.

The opposition from Shiite religious parties marked the first time the majority community had seriously flexed its muscles against the coalition.

The Shiites, who were severely repressed under Saddam Hussein's regime, had previously given the coalition a relatively easy ride.

In the capital, there have been sporadic clashes with radical supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose faction swiftly welcomed Sistani's position.

"All bodies that are not elected will be deemed illegitimate," a spokesman said.

But the persistent insurgency that has dogged the coalition for the past seven months has raged largely in the Sunni belt that extends north and west from Baghdad, where support for Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime ran high.

Late Wednesday, a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the second floor of the Italian embassy in the capital in the latest attack on the leading US ally.

The attack caused no casualties but slightly damaged the second floor and followed an exchange of fire outside the embassy, said Marina Catena, political advisor to Italy's special representative in Iraq.

It came two weeks after a truck bombing on an Italian police base in southern Iraq that killed 28 people including 19 Italians, and five days after two makeshift multiple rocket launchers were found near the embassy.

Despite the rash of attacks on the United States' coalition allies, a leading Tokyo daily reported Thursday that a Japanese reconnaissance team was set to report that it was safe for Japanese troops to be deployed to the Shiite south before the end of the year.

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