Iraq's constitution 'headed for approval'

Rejection appeared to be impossible after initial vote counts showed that a majority voted in favour of the constitution in two of the four provinces that Sunni Arab opponents were relying on to defeat the charter.

Opponents needed to get a two-thirds “no” vote in three of those provinces. They may have reached the threshold in Anbar and Salahuddin, but Diyala and Ninevah provinces appeared to have gone strongly “yes.” The latter three have Sunni majorities but also powerful Shiite and Kurdish communities, which made them the battlegrounds of the referendum.

In Diyala, 70% voted in favour and 20% opposed, with 10 of the ballots rejected as irregular, said Adil Abdel-Latif, the head of election commission in Diyala. The result came from a first count of the approximately 400,000 votes cast. At least one more count was being conducted to confirm the votes, which would then be sent to Baghdad, where results from all the provinces are being collected for final confirmation.

According to a vote count from 260 of Ninevah’s 300 polling stations, about 300,000 voted “yes” for the constitution, and only 80,000 voted “no,” said Samira Mohammed, spokeswoman for the election commission in the province’s capital, Mosul.

Ballots from the remaining 40 stations still had to be counted, but it would be impossible to turn the vote around to a two-thirds “no” Sunni opponents would need.

A nationwide majority “yes” vote is assured by the widespread support of the constitution among the Shiites – who make up 60% of the country’s 27 million people – and the Kurds – another 20%.

In London, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice predicted it was likely to pass, although she cautioned that she did not know the outcome for certain.

The constitution is a crucial step in Iraq’s transition to democracy after two decades of rule by Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Washington is hoping it passes so that Iraqis can form a legitimate, representative government, tame the insurgency and enable the 150,000 US troops to begin to withdraw.

Some Sunni Arab leaders of the “no” campaign decried the reported results and insisted their figures showed the constitution’s defeat, though they did not cite exact numbers. Some accused the US of interfering in the results.

“We are warning of acts of fraud. This might lead to civil disobedience if there is fraud,” said Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the National Dialogue Council. “We consider that Rice’s statement is pressure on the Independent Election Commission to pass the draft.”

The referendum saw few attacks on voters, and no voter deaths from violence. But the US military reported that five American soldiers were killed on voting day by a roadside bomb in the western town of Ramadi, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents.

The deaths brought to at least 1,975 the number of US service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Few people turned out to vote in Ramadi, or other parts of Anbar province, the vast western region that is the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority and the main battleground between Sunni insurgents and US-Iraqi forces.

The exception was the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, where thousands turned out. Opposition to the constitution is powerful there and would likely push results past the two-thirds threshold for a no vote in Anbar.

Sunnis turned out in force in Saturday’s voting, a stark contrast to parliamentary elections in January, which they boycotted as a protest to a political process they felt was handing the country’s Shiite majority unfair power. That move cost them, leaving them a minuscule presence in parliament.

The lines of Sunnis at the polls in the key electoral battleground states suggested they wanted to now participate in the political system.

Now the question is whether they will accept the passage of a constitution despite a significant “no” vote among the Sunni community. While moderates could take a more active role in politics, hard-liners could turn to the insurgency, deciding violence is the only hope of retaining influence in the country.

Abdul-Hussein al-Hendawi, a top official in the elections commission, stressed there were no results yet from Saturday’s vote. “We cannot make any prediction, but we hope by tonight we will have an idea about the result of the vote,” he said.

Some ballot boxes were still making their way to counting centres in the provinces. Provincial election workers were adding up the paper ballots, which will be sent to the central counting centre in Baghdad’s Green Zone for another check to reach the final, certified result.

Vote counters in the Green Zone were already compiling votes from the capital and its surroundings. But election officials in Baghdad said the central compilation of the provinces’ ballots may not start until Monday.

Initial estimates of overall turnout Saturday were 61%, election officials said. But competition was more intense in the three most crucial Sunni-dominated provinces – Diyala, Ninevah, Salahuddin, where more than 66% of voters turned out.

Turnout by Shiites and Kurdish in regions outside the most contested provinces appeared lower than in January – despite calls by the top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for his followers to vote. Still, the nine provinces of the south, the heartland of the Shiites, and the three provinces of the Kurdish autonomous zone in the north were expected to roll in big “yes” numbers.

In Karbala, a Shiite province just south of Baghdad, some 440,000 people voted - a 60% turnout – and 95% of them cast “yes,” ballots, according to the head of the election commission office in the province, Safaa al-Mousawi.

Most provinces in the south had only “moderate” turnout, between 33% and 66%, according to the elections commission. Qadissiyah province was even lower, with less than a third of voters going to the polls. In January, Shiites poured to the polls in huge numbers, well above 80 percent.

The lower participation may have been out of belief that success was a sure bet or because of disillusionment with Iraq’s Shiite leadership, which has been in power since April with little easing of Iraq’s numerous infrastructure problems.

Sunni Arabs, who controlled the country under Saddam Hussein, widely opposed the charter, fearing it will break the country into thee sections: powerful Kurdish and Shiite mini-states in the oil-rich north and south, and a weak and impoverished Sunni zone in central and western Iraq.

But at the last minute, a major party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, came out in favour of it after amendments were made giving Sunnis the chance to try to make deeper changes later, which may have split Sunni voting.