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26-10-2005 Scotsman Iraqis back democracy by four to one By Chief News Correspondent Gethin Chamberlain IRAQIS have voted overwhelmingly to back a new constitution for their country, paving the way for national polls in December, election officials announced yesterday. Nearly 79 per cent of the 9.8 million voters supported the constitution, the Independent Election Commission announced after a 10-day audit following allegations of fraud. The result - and the 63 per cent turnout - will be an enormous relief to the British and United States governments, which had feared that Sunni opposition could scupper the process. But opponents of the constitution reacted angrily to the results, repeating claims that there had been widespread fraud and theft of ballot papers. George Bush, the US president, welcomed the vote: "The Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a democracy. "By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress, from tyranny to liberation to national elections to the ratification of a constitution in the space of two-and-a- half years." But there is concern that the 21 per cent of voters who did not back the constitution should not find themselves sidelined. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said it was important that as many people as possible took part in the forthcoming elections, even if that meant making further changes to the constitution. "Although the draft constitution has now been passed, there is a review mechanism included in the draft," he said. "It is vital that there is maximum participation across all parts of Iraq in the elections in December, to ensure a fully representative government and council of representatives that will have the job of taking forward the implementation and review of this constitution." Yesterday's results showed that Sunnis, who had sharply opposed the draft document, failed to produce the three- quarters No vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq's 16 provinces to defeat the constitution. Two mostly Sunni Arab provinces - Salahuddin and Anbar - delivered massive No votes, but the third, Ninevah, produced a No vote of only 55 per cent. In Anbar, which includes the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, only 3 per cent of the 259,919 people who voted backed the constitution, and there was similar antipathy towards it in Salahuddin, which includes Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit. There, only a little over 18 per cent backed the constitution. However, the reverse was the case in Baghdad, where nearly 78 per cent of the 2.1 million voters backed the new system, while in the Shia stronghold of Basra the Yes vote garnered 96 per cent in the 15 October poll. Sunnis fear the new constitution will create two virtually autonomous and oil-rich mini-states, of Kurds in the north and Shias in the south, while leaving many Sunnis isolated in poor central and western regions with a weak central government in Baghdad. Hamdiya al-Husseini, an elections official, said the commission had received 135 complaints about possible violations regarding the referendum, but that most were minor and none could have affected the overall result. He said the referendum "was an accomplishment for all Iraqis, with no exception, because just using the right to vote is an inclination to use logic and reason instead of weapons and violence". A senior UN election specialist said she was also confident the election had not been fixed. "The result is accurate. It has been checked according to the processes that we all follow when we have elections," said Carina Perelli, who heads the UN team providing technical assistance to the Iraqi government. But Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Arab member of the committee that wrote the constitution, called the referendum "a farce" and accused government forces of stealing ballot boxes to reduce the percentage of No votes in several mostly Sunni Arab provinces. "The people were shocked to find out that their vote is worthless because of the major fraud that takes place in Iraq," he said. There are fears that the result could further alienate many Sunni Arabs and increase their support of, or even participation in, attacks by the country's Sunni-led insurgent groups. The militants kept up their deadly attacks yesterday and at least 12 people died when a suicide car bomb exploded near a regional government ministry in the predominantly Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah. It was one of two suicide attacks by insurgents in the generally peaceful province, 160 miles north-east of Baghdad. In the capital, six people died, including a seven-year-old boy, in four bomb attacks and seven shootings. The boy died in a blast in the Askan commercial district. Nine people were wounded. And in a statement released yesterday, al-Qaeda in Iraq said it was behind attacks that killed at least 15 people at a fortified hotel compound used by foreign journalists in Baghdad on Monday. Coalition governments must now wait to see whether Sunni politicians will decide to participate in the December elections. The charter is considered a major step in Iraq's democratic reforms, clearing the way for the election of a new, full-term parliament and providing another stepping stone towards the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces. But Mr Mutlaq said dissatisfaction with the running of the referendum would discourage Sunnis from taking part in elections and fuel insurgent violence. "Violence is not the only solution if politics offers solutions, so that we can move in that direction. But there is very little hope that we can make any gains in the elections," he said. See epages for map show the distribution of votes in the different regions of Iraq.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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