Tweet
Final Tally Shows Iraqi Voters Approved New Constitution
By EDWARD WONG
Published: October 25, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 25 - Iraqi electoral officials announced today that a new constitution had been passed by voters, enshrining a legal foundation for the future governance of the country and paving the way for elections for a full-term government in December.
Seventy-nine percent of voters approved the constitution in the nationwide referendum held on Oct. 15, the officials said. But because of the specifics of the electoral law and a strong effort by Sunni Arab voters in some provinces, the document only narrowly passed in the end, to the surprise of Iraqi and American officials.
The overall vote was sharply divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. The biggest support came from Shiites and Kurds, who make up about 80 percent of the population, while Sunni Arabs largely rejected the document.
It seemed, until the final count was announced, that the Sunnis might have rallied enough votes to defeat the constitution in a three-province rejection. Under the electoral law, if two-thirds of voters in three provinces had turned down the constitution, then the document would not have passed. Officials said on Monday that two Sunni-dominated provinces had rejected the document; the results for a third province with a Sunni majority, Ninevah, were not released until today.
Officials said that after an audit of the tally for Ninevah, they had determined that 55 percent there had voted "no" on the constitution, only 11 points short of the two-thirds threshold. If 83,283 of the 322,869 people who had voted "yes" had voted "no" instead, then the constitution would have been defeated. In other words, as in the past two presidential elections in the United States, the vote in Iraq came down to a small group of voters in one particular area of the country.
The document's approval "will convince many Iraqis who said 'no' to this constitution that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis respect it," said Hussein al-Shahristani, the deputy speaker of Parliament and a conservative Shiite politician. "However, there will always be terrorists linked to the previous regime or international terrorists who come from the outside who will refuse to accept this constitution."
With the December elections looming, political parties are already furiously jockeying to form coalitions. The parties must present slates of candidates by a Friday deadline. Already, the religious Shiite parties are negotiating to see whether they will run as one bloc, as in the elections last January, while Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister, is trying to form a large secular alliance.
The Iraqi electoral officials, at the suggestion of United Nations advisers, had also audited a random sampling of provinces in which more than 90 percent of voters had approved the constitution. The officials said today that they had found no evidence of voter fraud in those provinces, which were Basra and Babil, dominated by Shiites, and Erbil, a Kurdish province in the north. The officials said it is standard international practice to scrutinize vote tallies when numbers are so heavily skewed in one direction.
Turnout among Sunni Arabs was high in the northern and eastern parts of the Sunni Triangle, a marked changed from last January, when Sunni Arabs largely boycotted elections for a transitional government. Their participation in the referendum has been hailed by American officials as a positive step, a sign that people opposed to the American enterprise here, including insurgents, may be co-opted through the political process. But the widespread rejection of the constitution among Sunni Arabs also shows a fierce hostility toward a document that was seen to be written by Shiite and Kurdish leaders.
The last-minute approval of the constitution by one Sunni Arab group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, seems to have done little to win support among voters for the document. That approval came after American officials helped negotiate a compromise that would allow the constitution to be amended in the first four months of the new Parliament, to be elected in mid-December.
With that in mind, Sunni Arab leaders are now calling for participation in the elections. They say they fear that the constitution will lead to the break-up of Iraq, because it allows regions to separate from the central government into virtually independent entities. The Shiites and Kurds, who each control oil-rich areas in the south and north, pushed hard for the right to create autonomous regions.
Sunni Arab leaders say they intend to win seats in the new Parliament and push through changes to the constitution that will water down those powers. An amendment must be approved by a simple majority of members of the new Parliament before being put to voters for a referendum.
Much work remains to be done on the constitution. Major issues such as the allocation of natural resources and oil revenues still have to be worked out, as well as the exact language that will determine how an autonomous region is created. One Western diplomat said he had counted 55 places in the constitution that put off resolution of an issue for the future Parliament.
By EDWARD WONG
Published: October 25, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 25 - Iraqi electoral officials announced today that a new constitution had been passed by voters, enshrining a legal foundation for the future governance of the country and paving the way for elections for a full-term government in December.
Seventy-nine percent of voters approved the constitution in the nationwide referendum held on Oct. 15, the officials said. But because of the specifics of the electoral law and a strong effort by Sunni Arab voters in some provinces, the document only narrowly passed in the end, to the surprise of Iraqi and American officials.
The overall vote was sharply divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. The biggest support came from Shiites and Kurds, who make up about 80 percent of the population, while Sunni Arabs largely rejected the document.
It seemed, until the final count was announced, that the Sunnis might have rallied enough votes to defeat the constitution in a three-province rejection. Under the electoral law, if two-thirds of voters in three provinces had turned down the constitution, then the document would not have passed. Officials said on Monday that two Sunni-dominated provinces had rejected the document; the results for a third province with a Sunni majority, Ninevah, were not released until today.
Officials said that after an audit of the tally for Ninevah, they had determined that 55 percent there had voted "no" on the constitution, only 11 points short of the two-thirds threshold. If 83,283 of the 322,869 people who had voted "yes" had voted "no" instead, then the constitution would have been defeated. In other words, as in the past two presidential elections in the United States, the vote in Iraq came down to a small group of voters in one particular area of the country.
The document's approval "will convince many Iraqis who said 'no' to this constitution that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis respect it," said Hussein al-Shahristani, the deputy speaker of Parliament and a conservative Shiite politician. "However, there will always be terrorists linked to the previous regime or international terrorists who come from the outside who will refuse to accept this constitution."
With the December elections looming, political parties are already furiously jockeying to form coalitions. The parties must present slates of candidates by a Friday deadline. Already, the religious Shiite parties are negotiating to see whether they will run as one bloc, as in the elections last January, while Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister, is trying to form a large secular alliance.
The Iraqi electoral officials, at the suggestion of United Nations advisers, had also audited a random sampling of provinces in which more than 90 percent of voters had approved the constitution. The officials said today that they had found no evidence of voter fraud in those provinces, which were Basra and Babil, dominated by Shiites, and Erbil, a Kurdish province in the north. The officials said it is standard international practice to scrutinize vote tallies when numbers are so heavily skewed in one direction.
Turnout among Sunni Arabs was high in the northern and eastern parts of the Sunni Triangle, a marked changed from last January, when Sunni Arabs largely boycotted elections for a transitional government. Their participation in the referendum has been hailed by American officials as a positive step, a sign that people opposed to the American enterprise here, including insurgents, may be co-opted through the political process. But the widespread rejection of the constitution among Sunni Arabs also shows a fierce hostility toward a document that was seen to be written by Shiite and Kurdish leaders.
The last-minute approval of the constitution by one Sunni Arab group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, seems to have done little to win support among voters for the document. That approval came after American officials helped negotiate a compromise that would allow the constitution to be amended in the first four months of the new Parliament, to be elected in mid-December.
With that in mind, Sunni Arab leaders are now calling for participation in the elections. They say they fear that the constitution will lead to the break-up of Iraq, because it allows regions to separate from the central government into virtually independent entities. The Shiites and Kurds, who each control oil-rich areas in the south and north, pushed hard for the right to create autonomous regions.
Sunni Arab leaders say they intend to win seats in the new Parliament and push through changes to the constitution that will water down those powers. An amendment must be approved by a simple majority of members of the new Parliament before being put to voters for a referendum.
Much work remains to be done on the constitution. Major issues such as the allocation of natural resources and oil revenues still have to be worked out, as well as the exact language that will determine how an autonomous region is created. One Western diplomat said he had counted 55 places in the constitution that put off resolution of an issue for the future Parliament.
Province Yes % No %
Anbar 3.40 96.96
Baghdad 77.7 22.30
Dehok 99.13 0.87
Diyala 51.27 48.73
Karbala 96.58 3.42
Kirkuk 62.91 37.09
Meysan 97.79 2.21
Muthanna 98.65 1.35
Najaf 95.82 4.18
Qadissiya 96.74 3.26
Salahedeen18.25 81.75
Sulaimaniya98.96 0.04
Arbil 99.36 0.64
Thiqar 97.15 2.85
Wasit 95.70 4.30
Basra 96.02 3.98
Ninevah 44.09 55.01
Babil 94.56 5.42
Comment