IRAQ - Nov 21 - Elections To Go On As Scheduled.

Electoral officials announce they have decided to hold the country's first democratic elections on Jan 30 despite a sharp rise in violence in the past month and threats of a boycott by Sunni Arab leaders. The officials said they had no legal authority to push the elections back beyond January, since an interim constitution drafted last spring requires that the elections take place by then. But in interviews, Iraqi and UN electoral officials acknowledged that security problems have arisen during the voter registration process. About 90 of roughly 540 registration centers have had to be shut because of threats of violence, said head of the UN electoral assessment team Carlos Valenzuela. The centers that have been closed include all of those in Anbar Province, which encompasses the hostile cities of Falluja and Ramadi, and Ninevah Province, which includes Mosul, the country's third-largest city and a strong base for the insurgency. Valenzuela said the Iraqi electoral commission was scrambling to find ways of safely ensuring that voters are properly registered. Both Anbar and Ninevah are Sunni-dominated provinces, and a failure to properly register voters there could cast doubt on the outcome of the election. American and Iraqi officials say that having strong Sunni voter turnout in the election is one of the most crucial factors for success. In the 19 months of the war, the Americans have failed to persuade hostile Sunnis to lay down their arms and engage in politics, and an election viewed as illegitimate by the Sunnis could lead to an increase in hostilities. "There are some disturbances in certain areas", said Adel al-Lami, an organiser at the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, in charge of putting together the elections. Political entities will have until 3pm to register themselves, said the head of the commission Abdul-Hussein Hindawi. So far, 198 entities have registered, 44 of them individuals, he said. Of those, 15 to 20 are Sunni-dominated groups or Sunni Arab individuals, indicating that Sunnis will be well represented on the ballots, he said. The registrants include the Iraqi Islamic Party, an influential Sunni party that on Nov 9 withdrew from the interim government to protest the US-led offensive in Falluja, Hindawi said. He said: "All the political parties in Iraq that are known historically and represent large numbers of people have registered their names for the elections". On Jan 30, Iraqis will vote for members of a 275-seat National Assembly, which will then install an executive government and draft a permanent constitution. Elections for a full-term government are planned for the end of 2005. The same day, Iraqis will also vote for members of provincial councils in the country's 18 provinces. In the northern Kurdish region, residents will vote in a third election, one for a Kurdistan Assembly. Expatriate Iraqis in at least 14 countries are expected to be able to vote in the National Assembly elections. Smaller countries such as Jordan and Great Britain will have a voter registration and polling center in the capital, said Safwat Rashid, an electoral commissioner. Larger countries such as the US, Australia and Iran will have multiple centers, he added.