Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leading Shiite cleric, became the rotating president of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) for one month starting Monday, as part of the alphabetic rotation mechanism of the nine-member presidential body.  

He is the fifth to preside the council, handpicked by the United States in July, and the fourth Shiite member after Ibrahim al-Jaafary, Ahmmad Al Chalabi and Ayad Alawi.

Al-Hakim succeeded the Kurdish leader Jalal al-Talabani, secretary general of the Kurds Patriotic Union who was the rotating president of the Council for November.

The new president is the current Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

He became the chairman of this powerful Islamic Shiite party after his brother Ayatollah Mohammed Baquir al-Hakim, the previous chairman, was assassinated in a car bomb attack in Najaf in August.

An estimate of 82 people were killed besides the slain Ayatollah in the deadly double-car bombing, for which no one has declared the responsibility.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim lived with his brother in exile in Iran for 23 years before they returned to Iraq after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

He is also the leader of Badir militia, armed wing of the SCIRI.

Al-Hakim has many supporters in the south of Iraq, especially in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, 180 km south of Baghdad.

Al-Hakim said Sunday that the governing council unanimously agreed on the point that a general election is the best way of forming the transitional political body which will assume sovereignty from the US-led coalition next summer.

The IGC held the discussions after al-Hakim met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential heavyweight among the majority Shiite Muslims, last week and announced that al-Sistani was critical of the power transfer agreement signed between the IGC and US administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer.

On Oct. 15, the IGC unveiled the US-sponsored political transformation blueprint, which sees the end of occupation by June 2004 after an interim government is selected by a transitional assembly chosen by caucuses of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Al-Hakim approved al-Sistani's favor that the sovereign government should be set up through direct national elections rather than be nominated.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2003)