http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102500357.html
Draft Constitution Approved by Iraqi Voters
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; 9:03 AM
BAGHDAD, Oct. 25 -- Iraqi election officials announced Tuesday that voters approved a new constitution in a nationwide referendum 10 days ago, based on a final tally of votes that had been delayed for more than a week while officials recounted ballots and checked for possible irregularities.
In the end, more than 78 percent of the voters nationwide approved the constitution. Opponents -- mostly minority Sunni Arabs -- were unable to defeat it by getting at least two thirds of the voters in three provinces to vote against it, according to final preliminary results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. The results confirmed widely reported preliminary estimates shortly after the balloting .
According to the tallies released Tuesday, a majority of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces voted against the constitution, but one of them failed to reach the two-thirds threshold -- a veto provision designed to protect Iraq's minority communities. In Anbar province, 96 percent of those casting ballots voted against the referendum, and 81 percent rejected it in Salahaddin. But in the key swing province of Nineveh, 56 percent voted against the constitution -- about 10 percentage points short of what was necessary to kill the charter.
About 63 percent of Iraq's 15.5 million register voters cast ballots, the commission reported.
"This constitution aims at building a modern constitutional state based on the rule of law and free choice for citizens. Whatever the results might be, it was a civilized step whose aim is to put Iraq among the free democratic nations. It was a great achievement for all Iraqis regardless of the results," said Fareed Ayar and Hamdiya Husseini, members of the electoral commission, who announced the final tally.
The results underscore how deeply divided Iraqi society has become along ethnic and sectarian lines -- a problem that has fueled a Sunni-led insurgency against the government and U.S. troops stationed here that independent political and military say has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
Shiite Arabs, who account for about 60 percent of Iraq's population, overwhelmingly favored passage of the constitution, which endorses a loose federal system with a weak, religiously influenced federal government. Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the population, also strongly embraced the charter, which grants great autonomy to their region in northern Iraq.
But top leaders of the Sunnis, who comprise the final 20 percent of the population, were split over the constitution. Many said they feared it could herald the partition of the country, with Kurds and Shiites building states in the oil-rich north and south, and Sunnis relegated to the resource-poor center. Others Sunni leaders were won over by a last-minute change that will allow the charter to be amended, subject to another referendum, by the next parliament, which is scheduled to be elected in December.
Together, in 12 provinces that are predominantly Shiite, Kurdish or a mixture of the two, more than 94 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the constitution. The charter scored more than a 98 percent acceptance rate in four of the provinces.
Those overwhelming margins of victory initially raised suspicions that the results were fixed, and that fraud may have been used to ensure the constitution's passage. That prompted the electoral commission to delay the release of final preliminary results until they had been re-checked.
But while there is still anecdotal evidence of vote tampering, no credible evidence of widespread fraud has yet emerged. Western diplomats say they hope that the Sunnis' strong voter turnout -- 88 percent of the voters cast ballots in the Sunni-majority province of Salahaddin, for instance -- indicates their rejection of violence and support for political means to bring change. And some Sunnis said Tuesday they were looking forward to improving their membership in parliament in December's elections.
"We have urged our people to vote in favor of the constitution because we think it is the best way to achieve what we call for," said Naseer Ani, head of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party's political office. "Now we have the elections nearing, and we call for all to participate with us in the new political process if they want to change any of the mistakes and disputes included in the referendum."
But then again, maybe it's not. ]
