IRAQ - Preparing For The Elections.

The following are Jaafari factors working in line with US-inspired preparations for the general elections, factors which could have major implications for Iran in 2005 - the year of presidential elections in Iran as moderate President Mohammad Khatami's second and final term will end in June and the radical right-wing of the theocracy wants its candidate to win.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the main political party in the country's Jaafari sect which claims to have the support of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, is talking less about Islam and has cut out any mention of revolution. It is the arch-rival of Sadr's Jaysh Al-Mahdi (the army of the "Hidden", or "Missing" 12th Imam), which consists mainly of thugs fighting for the establishment of a Jaafari theocracy in Iraq.

A former guerrilla movement once dedicated to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, SCIRI now trains its sights on the democratic elections scheduled for Jan. 31. In what the Boston Globe (BG) on Sept. 28 called "bizarre makeover", the party's intellectuals are telling young volunteers not to bear arms but to run polling stations, spot voter fraud and sign up new members. "It is part of the transformation sweeping through Iraq's political parties", the BG said of the changes in SCIRI and other parties, "forced for the first time to compete for votes".

The six main parties in Iraq - all developed as opposition movements in exile - are run by unelected leaders. Now they have less than four months to build a popular base before Iraq's first contested national elections in two generations. The six parties are:

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Masoud Barzani, which developed in the Kurdish north several decade ago.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an offshoot of the KDP which developed in the 1970s. Now PUK controls Kurdistan's eastern part that borders with Iran and Turkey, while KDP controls the western part which borders with Turkey. Since 1992, the two parties have been co-ruling Kurdistan as a federation with Arbil being its capital. Because Saddam's regime massacred the Kurds in March 1991 as a result of their rebellion, the US and UK establish a no-fly zone over the north and protected Kurdistan. The outcome was a prosperous democracy in the Kurdish north. Now KDP and PUK want to regain the oil-rich Kirkuk region as part of Kurdistan. In return, Kurdistan will let Iraq become a federation of prosperous democracies. If Iraq's Shiite and Sunni Arabs insist on keeping Kirkuk out of the Kurdish region - which means the US has failed in Iraq - Kurdistan will secede and Iraq will be partitioned. Kirkuk was originally part of the Kurdish north and Saddam's regime forcibly moved most of its Kurdish population to Arab areas, including the Sunni Triangle. But originally, during the Ottoman empire, Kirkuk was also regarded as a Turkoman enclave as the area has a relatively large Turkoman community.

SCIRI, which was founded in the early 1980s in Tehran by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim (son of the late Grand Ayatollah Abdel Muhsin Al-Hakim who in the 1960s was the highest religious authority in Jaafari Shiism based in Najaf). Hakim fled to Iran in the early 1980s after Saddam's Baathist regime massacred several of his brothers and other close relatives. Hakim was killed in August 2003 together with many other people at the entrance to the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest shrine in the Shiite world, by suicide bombers said to be Wahhabi followers of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Abdel Aziz, as SCIRI leader (see below).

The Iraqi National Congress (INC), a coalition of non-religious groups led by Ahmad Chalabi, which has developed since 1992. Chalabi is a Shiite layman from a prominent family. He backs Sistani's school of thought that the Jaafari Shiite religious men should never get involved in politics and the affairs of state and that they should always be above such worldly matters. He left Iraq at the age of nine.

The Iraqi National Accord (INA) of interim Prime Minister Allawi, which has developed since 1990. INA is borrowing a page from the Baath Party playbook, building a cult of personality around Allawi, requiring members to sign loyalty oaths, distributing membership cards and holding party functions to build esprit de corps.

The Islamic Da'wa Party, a Shiite mainly group led by Ibrahim Al-Jaafari. A Shiite from the Shammar confederation of tribes, Jaafari is one of the interim vice president, with the President being Ghazi Al-Yawer, a Sunni who is the grandson of the head of the Shammar tribes. Da'wa was founded in the 1970s by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Al-Sadr, an uncle of rebel mullah Muqtada Al-Sadr, who was killed in 1979 together with his sister by the Saddam regime. Like SCIRI, Da'wa has combined a religious appeal with tried-and-true patronage tactics - offering members jobs in ministries controlled by the party.