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| Iraq |
| Huge turn-out all across Iraq |
| 2005-10-15 |
| Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers on Iraq's new constitution Saturday, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense competition with Shiites and Kurds over the shape of the nation's young democracy after decades of dictatorship. With little violence, turnout was more than 66 percent in the three most crucial provinces. The constitution still seemed likely to pass, as expected. But the higher-than-forecast Sunni turnout made it possible the vote would be close - or even go the other way - and cast doubt on U.S. hopes that the charter would succeed in luring Sunnis away from the insurgency. Washington hopes the constitution will be approved so Iraqis can form a permanent, representative government and the 150,000 U.S. troops can begin to withdraw. ``The constitution is a sign of civilization,'' Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said after casting his ballot. ``This constitution has come after heavy sacrifices. It is a new birth.'' In Baghdad, men counted votes by lanterns because the electricity was out. Results were written on a chalkboard. Outside, Iraqi soldiers huddled in a courtyard, breaking their fast. Northeast of the capital, in Baqouba, men sat around long tables, putting ``yes'' votes in one pile and ``no'' votes in another. The country's Shiite majority - some 60 percent of its estimated 27 million people - and the Kurds - another 20 percent - support the approximately 140-article charter, which provides them with autonomy in the northern and southern regions where they are concentrated. The Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and forms the backbone of the insurgency, widely opposes the draft, convinced its federalist system will tear the country into Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the south and north, leaving Sunnis in an impoverished center. Last-minute amendments to the constitution, adopted Wednesday, promise Sunnis the chance to try to change the charter more deeply later, prompting one Sunni Arab group - the Iraqi Islamic Party - to support the draft. In the south, Shiite women in head-to-toe veils and men emerged from the poll stations flashing victory signs with fingers stained with violet ink, apparently responding in mass to the call by their top cleric to support the charter. But in Sunni regions - both in Baghdad and several key heavily Sunni provinces - the high turnout seemed to consist largely of Iraqis voting ``no'' because of fears the charter would set in stone the Shiite domination they fear. A day that U.S. and Iraqi leaders feared could become bloody turned out to be the most peaceful in months. Insurgents attacked five of Baghdad's 1,200 polling stations with shootings and bombs, wounding seven voters. The only deaths reported were those of four Iraqi soldiers killed by roadside bombs far from a polling sites, and there were no major attacks reported as U.S. and Iraqi forces clamped down with major security measures around balloting sites. Overall turnout was about 61 percent and surpassed 66 percent in seven of Iraq's 18 provinces, including key Sunni Arab-majority ones, according to initial estimates, election officials said Saturday. Some 250 election workers in Baghdad were starting to compile the ballots, collecting the summarized results and ballot boxes from around the country to count. So far, only materials from areas close to the capital have arrived, and no results were expected Saturday night, said Farid Ayar of the Independent Elections Commissions of Iraq. ``Initial estimates are that the turnout is no less than 61 percent,'' said Abdul-Hussein Hindawi, another senior IECI member said. More than 66 percent of voters cast ballots in the three crucial provinces that could decide the vote - Salahuddin, Diyala and Ninevah, each of which has a Sunni majority but also significant Shiite or Kurdish populations, Ayar said. Sunni opponents are hoping to get a two-thirds majority ``no'' vote in these provinces, which would defeat the constitution. Other provinces with a similar rate of participation were Baghdad and Tamim - with mixed Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite populations - and the overwhelmingly Shiite provinces of Babil and Karbala, in the south. Most provinces in the mostly Shiite south and the three provinces that make up the autonomous area of Kurdistan in the north had turnout rates between 33 and 66 percent, Ayar told a Baghdad press conference soon after polls closed Saturday evening. Fewer than 33 percent of voters cast ballots in the southern Shiite province of Qadissiyah, he said. He did not give specific figures for any province. The figures suggested a somewhat higher enthusiasm for voting in the mixed provinces than in the heartlands of Iraq's Shiite majority and Kurdish minority, where approval of the constitution was all but assured. There was no information on turnout in Anbar, the vast western province that is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab and is the main battlefield between U.S.-Iraqi forces and the insurgents, Ayar said. Anbar's largest city, Fallujah, saw thousands voting on Saturday. But in other towns and cities, where fear of insurgent retaliation was higher, almost no one was seen going to the polls. The Bush administration sees success in the election as key to defeating the Sunni-led insurgency. ``All that I've seen is pictures on television so far which looks as if the Iraqis are exercising their right, they are doing so in a peaceful manner, they are doing so enthusiastically,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters as she flew from Moscow to London. ``That's been our principal concern, that the Iraqis have this opportunity to go and voice their views on this constitution. That's the way this was set up ... and that's what they are doing,'' Rice said. President Bush, who taped his weekly radio address on Friday before the voting, said Iraqis who participated in the vote would strike a blow against terrorism. ``This weekend's election is a critical step forward in Iraq's march toward democracy, and with each step the Iraqi people take, al-Qaida's vision for the region becomes more remote,'' the president said in the address aired Saturday. The Sunni Arab turnout was a dramatic change from January's parliamentary election, which most Sunnis boycotted. Now they were eager to cast ballots. ``This is all wrong. I said 'no' to a constitution written by the Americans,'' said Jilan Shaker, 22, a laborer who showed up at an Azamiyah polling station in shorts and plastic sandals. In the crucial northern city of Mosul, there was a constant flow of voters all day long into a kindergarten in a Sunni Arab neighborhood: men and women, dressed at their best in suits and ties or neatly pressed veils, many carrying young children in holiday clothes. ``The government can't just sew together an outfit and dress the people up by force. We do not see ourselves or see our future in this draft,'' Gazwan Abdul Sattar, 27-year-old Sunni teacher, said after voting ``no.'' As polls closed at 5 p.m. in Iraq's 6,100 polling stations, many rounds of gunfire were heard in celebration. People were seen in some streets of Baghdad handing out sweets ahead of the end of the day's Ramadan fast. In a mostly Kurdish neighborhood of Mosul, Bahar Saleh supported the constitution. ``This constitution will at last give the Kurds their lost rights,'' the 34-year-old housewife said, coming from the polls with the red-and-green Kurdish flag wrapped around her body. In the south, the heartland of Iraq's Shiites, some Shiite cities reported a higher turnout than the January vote. Top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had urged his followers to turn out and support the charter. ``Today, I came to vote because I am tired of terrorists, and I want the country to be safe again,'' said Zeinab Sahib, a 30-year-old mother of three, one of the first voters at a school in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Karrada in Baghdad. ``This constitution means unity and hope.'' Overall national turnout in the January elections was 58 percent, but only 2 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots in Anbar province. Turnout was also low in the Sunni Arab provinces of Ninevah and Salahuddin. American troops in Humvees rattled down Baghdad streets in patrols, while Iraqi soldiers and police ringed polling stations at schools and other public buildings protected by concrete barriers and barbed wire. Iraqi soldiers armed with heavy machine guns looked over polling sites from nearby rooftops. U.S. troops in tanks and armored vehicles stood not far away as helicopters hovered overhead. Driving was banned to stop suicide car bombings by insurgents determined to wreck the vote. The polls opened at 7 a.m., just hours after government workers restored power lines that insurgents sabotaged in the north Friday night, plunging the Iraqi capital and surrounding areas into darkness. In the central Baghdad area of Khulani, where Sunnis and Shiites both live, a steady stream of voters entered a large polling station after being searched three times. They included old men and women who could barely walk with canes, and young mothers wearing chadors and carrying infants. Other voters wore baggy traditional Kurdish dresses, and some youths were dressed in jeans. After placing the ballots in the plastic boxes at the polling centers, the Iraqis had the forefinger of their right hands marked with violet ink to prevent repeat voting. In Sadr City, a mostly Shiite area of Baghdad controlled by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against the U.S.-led coalition last year, people were widely expected to vote ``yes.'' Not Haitham Aouda Abdul-Nabi, a 23-year-old co-owner of a convenience store. When he showed up at a Sadr City secondary school to vote, he said: ``More than 90 percent of Iraq's Shiites support the constitution, but not me.'' Why? Because he is tired of the chaos that has followed Saddam's ouster: killings by insurgents, fighting between rebels and U.S. troops, squabbling in Iraq's mostly Shiite and Kurdish government, and nearly daily power outages in the capital. ``Only force can bring results with a people like us in Iraq,'' he said. ``Unfortunately, we need someone like Saddam. This government is too weak.'' |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |