Hopes rise of a “yes” to Iraq's constitution

Oct 18th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

As vote-counting continues following Saturday's surprisingly calm referendum on Iraq’s proposed new constitution, it is looking ever more likely that opponents will not have mustered enough votes to block it. However, despite last-minute concessions to appease them, most Sunni Arabs are still thought to have voted “no”

THOUGH the final result may not be confirmed for another few days, it now looks like opponents of Iraq's proposed new constitution did not muster enough votes in the referendum on Saturday October 15th to block it. To do so, a two-thirds “no” vote in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces would have been needed. Preliminary figures suggest that Sunni Arabs voted heavily against the document, as expected, leading to its overwhelming rejection in Salahaddin (Saddam Hussein's home province) and Anbar. But in two other provinces with big Sunni Arab populations, Nineveh and Diyala, strong “yes” votes by Kurds and Shia Arabs may mean that the constitution goes through.

The declaration of the final result may be delayed by checks that Iraq’s electoral commission is making on returns from some regions where the “yes” vote was remarkably high—over 90%—though on Tuesday the commission insisted that such figures did not necessarily imply fraud.
The stringent security measures imposed during the referendum had even more success than the authorities might have hoped, with the result that voting went smoothly in most places, with notably less violence than is usual. As in January’s general election, some voters left the polling booths proudly waving their index fingers, stained with the purple ink that demonstrated they had voted.

Among the few incidents, America revealed on Sunday that five of its soldiers had been killed in an attack the day before in Ramadi, a hotbed of Sunni militancy in Anbar province. A group of civilians was hurt near a polling station in Baghdad, when police units accidentally opened fire on each other. Elsewhere, one voter was reported to have been killed by a sniper.

The turnout is thought to have varied significantly between provinces but electoral officials have indicated that, overall, more than 60% of the 15.5m registered voters took part. If so, this was an improvement on the 58% seen in January's election, in which many Sunni Arabs (who are around a fifth of Iraqis) either refused to participate or were unable to because of violence and intimidation. This time, voters in some Sunni towns turned out in force, to reject the constitution—in Fallujah, the scene last year of fierce fighting between American forces and Sunni militants, 99% voted “no”. At least it could be said that their participation in democratic politics was progress of a sort.

The strong turnout was a welcome surprise, given the lack of enthusiasm detected among the Iraqi public in the run-up to the vote. The months of bombings and shootings following January’s general election have shown them that politics alone is no panacea. Many voters complained before the referendum of not having received a copy of the document they were being asked to approve, even in parts of Baghdad, let alone the centre and west of the country, where the insurgency is fiercest.

This was in part because of frantic last-minute negotiations to tweak the draft constitution, mainly to make it more acceptable to the Sunnis. They feel they are being done down by a compact between the majority Shia Arabs (about 60% of the population, especially concentrated in the south of the country) and the Kurds (around 20%, based mainly in the north).

The accord between the Kurds and Shias gives the former extreme autonomy, while pleasing the latter by giving the constitution not only an Islamist tint but also letting Shias (and Sunnis) form their own decentralised regions. But Sunnis believe that this would further divide the country, to their detriment. In particular, Sunnis worry that the Shias could form a “super-region” of up to nine provinces, with links to neighbouring Iran, presaging Iraq’s eventual break-up into three countries. Furthermore, the article in the draft constitution dealing with the allocation of oil revenue has worrying ambiguities that could be abused by the Shias and Kurds, who sit on most of the country’s oil fields.

Though Shias and Kurds voted mostly in favour of the constitution, there remains a lot in the document to annoy even them. Many Shias, not just Sunnis, suspect federalism of being an American-Kurdish plot to break up Iraq. Most of the main Shia parties endorsed the draft, as did the most influential Shia religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, though a radical preacher, Muqtada al-Sadr, offered no clear guidance. Many Kurds, though they will have approved the constitution anyway, are cross that it includes no right to secede.

In an attempt to win over Sunni leaders, just four days before the vote, it was agreed that the next parliament will create a commission to review the constitution and propose amendments, to be confirmed in yet another referendum. This will give the Sunnis another chance to press for changes. The final deal agreed in the past few days also offered a further clutch of mostly symbolic sweeteners for the Sunnis, modifying the constitution to stress Iraq’s unity and Arab character.

As a result, the largest Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, swung around to endorse the document. By Thursday, it was joined by another prominent group, the Sunni Endowment, which said that despite some lingering misgivings, “living under a flawed law is better than chaos and anarchy.” Some other influential Sunni outfits, such as the Muslim Scholars’ Board, still called for a “no” vote or a boycott.

Whatever the final result of the referendum, Sunni representation in the next parliament will be higher, thanks to improvements in the voting system to make representation more proportional and because more Sunni groups are expected to take part in the next general election, due in December, than did so in January’s. As the war drags on, more may turn against the suicide-bombers and others at the extreme end of the insurgency. That, at any rate, is the hope of Iraq’s Shias and Kurds—and of many ambivalent, fearful Sunnis.

Assuming the constitution, for all its flaws, has been approved by voters, it will pave the way to a new form of governance that will be the most federal and decentralised in the Middle East, establish a fair set of rights and values, and, with luck, improve life for all Iraqis. If all indications so far are wrong and it is rejected, the December parliamentary elections will have to be followed by a fresh round of constitution-drafting. Even in this pessimistic case, the increased Sunni representation in the new parliament should improve the chances that the second stab at a constitution would be more widely acceptable.

More reassurances needed

There is plenty that the current and next parliaments can still do to reassure Sunnis and undercut support for the insurgency. Guarantees could be offered to former members of Saddam’s Baath party who have no blood on their hands that they have nothing to fear. A ruling could be made that no region may comprise more than four provinces, in order to block the formation of super-regions. The constitutional articles regarding oil revenues could be clarified and amended to ensure that Sunni-inhabited areas which lack oil reserves are not done down.

Now that the referendum has been held, and apparently ended in success for the constitution's drafters, it is vital for Iraq’s emerging new order to divide the insurgents and reach out to Sunni nationalists. If things go well, the political momentum that has fizzled since January’s elections may be recovered. But Iraqis still need to try harder to clasp hands across sectarian barriers.

Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.