BAGHDAD, 16 October 2005 — Up to 10 million Iraqis voted in a referendum yesterday, protected by a vast security screen that deterred all but a few ineffectual insurgent attacks.
The Sunni Arab minority turned out in force for the first time since US troops toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, bolstering the “no” vote against a constitution drawn up by a Parliament elected in January and led by Shiites and Kurds.
Fighting and fear kept voters away in some Sunni cities in the west and north; confidence in a big “yes” may have depressed turnout in Shiite and Kurdish areas. Security was tight.
Six Iraqi soldiers were killed in two attacks not clearly related to the election. Although three mortar rounds fell near one Baghdad voting site, the only people hurt while voting included several hit by bullets from nervous police and troops. Militants seized ballot boxes in one Baghdad voting station.
More than 40 people were killed during January’s vote in more than 100 insurgent attacks, including suicide bombings.
The Sunni Arab turnout was a dramatic change from January parliamentary election, which most Sunnis boycotted. Now they were eager to cast ballots, which could make the race tighter than expected.
“This is all wrong. I said ‘no’ to a constitution written by the Americans,” said Jilan Shaker, 22, a laborer who showed up at a polling station in Baghdad’s Azamiyah district 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.
“I came here to participate and not make the same mistake we made at the last election,” said Yassin Humadi, 57, at a busy polling station in Fallujah, a Sunni bastion.
“We will not allow the others to control the Sunnis again.” Sajida Mahmood, a 40-year-old Fallujah housewife, said: “Every Iraqi who loves Iraq must vote ‘no’, because a ‘yes’ means backing the Americans and their agents.”
Elsewhere in heavily Sunni Anbar province, however, clashes between militants and US and Iraqi forces in the provincial capital Ramadi and fear of fighting in other towns kept people away. No overall turnout figure was immediately available.
In Mosul, militants handed out fliers warning voters against taking part in “a fake ballot run by Uncle Sam.” The United States, with more than 150,000 troops struggling against the Sunni insurgency, wants a constitution in place on a tight schedule and has bargained hard to narrow the gap between Sunni moderates and the Shiite- and Kurdish-led government.
Turnout among the 15.5 million voters may have been around 10 million, Electoral Commission member Farid Ayar told Reuters. At least eight of 18 provinces saw turnout above 66 percent, but in two or three, it was below 33 percent, officials said.
Though counts got under way as soon as 10 hours of voting ended at 5 p.m., election officers said any official indication of the result was unlikely before Monday.
But Iraq’s communal arithmetic and healthy turnouts in Shiite and Kurdish areas kept government officials fairly confident of a “yes” vote in spite of Sunni defiance and some strong “no” voting among nationalist Shiites in the south.
There is a veto clause if two thirds of voters in three of 18 provinces reject the charter, but that seems unlikely.
“I voted ‘yes’ because the constitution will fire a bullet into the heart of terrorism,” said Raad Farraj in Baghdad’s poor Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, expressing the hopes of many in the 60-percent majority community, many of whose religious leaders had urged them to back the charter.
US President George W. Bush, keen to show progress after criticism of his Iraq policy, called the vote “a critical step forward in Iraq’s march toward democracy.” Replying to insurgent taunts, he said, “America will not run” as it did from Vietnam.
A US-brokered compromise last week secured a promise that the constitution, if approved, would be reviewed by a new Parliament, involving Sunnis, to be elected in December. That means more hard bargaining ahead, particularly on key issues such as the role of Islam in the law and the powers of federal regions, especially over oil and water resources.
Many Sunnis complain that provisions for regional autonomy risk tearing the country into warring regions, with southern Shiites and northern Kurds in control of the main oilfields.
Parliamentary Speaker Hajim Al-Hassani hailed the fact that his fellow Sunnis had at least voted and would do so again: “One community had been sidelined. Now this community is taking part and will have a role in amending the constitution,” he said.
