BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi leaders said today they want to start immediately on planning elections, after the United Nations estimated that it would take eight months to organize a nationwide ballot.

In the meantime, U.N. officials must offer a new method for choosing the provisional government due to take power from the U.S.-led coalition on June 30, a prominent Shiite Muslim party said. Shiites led the push for elections before the handover date, but the U.N. report issued Monday said the country couldn't hold elections until at least January 2005.

"If there is no election ... then who is going to take over sovereignty from the Coalition Authority? The Iraqi people need to know," said Hamed al-Bayati, a spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which holds a seat in the current, temporary Iraq administration.

But the United Nations believes it's up to the Iraqis to come up with a formula for establishing a provisional government.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Monday the world body, if asked, would help come up with an alternative to the original American plan to pick a new government using regional caucuses, a formula that Iraq's powerful Shiite clergy rejected as illegitimate and that now most of the 25-member Governing Council opposes.

Brahimi's report ruled out the caucuses plan, saying it was seen as too open to manipulation by the Americans. The United States now wants to expand the council to make it more representative and give it the power to rule until elections can be held.