Sunni area ‘rejects’ Iraq charter

10/22/2005

Partial results of the vote on a new Iraqi constitution suggest at least one Sunni province has rejected it.

The 20% sample said 81.5% had rejected the draft in Salahuddin, but in Diyala - which has a slight Sunni majority - it was approved by just over 50%.

No figures were given for the other two Sunni provinces of Anbar and Ninevah. A two-thirds rejection of the charter in both would torpedo the project.

As expected, the results suggested a very high approval by Shias and Kurds.

Adil al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) told a news conference he could not give a date for the announcement of final results but said it would take some days.

And he cautioned that the results unveiled on Saturday could not be interpreted either way.

“Let’s pretend there are 100 ballot boxes in all Iraq. Well, 20 of those boxes have been brought to Baghdad and these results today represent half of those,” Mr Lami said.

“These figures do not show anything much yet.”

The official said the count was taking longer than expected because - under international standards - it was necessary to recount the ballots in areas where the “Yes” or “No” vote was very high.

The provisional results showed several provinces approving the constitutional draft with more than 90% - including Najaf with 96%, and Karbala with 90%. In Baghad, the approval rate was 78%.

Mr Lami said no “dangerous” violations of the electoral law had been reported by the complaints.

“We have received more than 100 complaints from different parties… but these complaints are very simple, for very simple violations made by those guarding the elections,” Mr Lami said.