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Iraq vote turnout may cross 10 million
Turnout in Iraq's constitutional referendum may have crossed 10 million voters, or nearly two thirds of those registered, a member of Iraq's Electoral Commission said after polls closed.
"I think it could be more than 10 million, I think, I hope," Farid Ayar, one of seven commissioners on the Electoral Commission, said on Saturday.
"I was thinking that maybe we could get around 11 million voters. But Iraqis are getting more used to going and voting now, so perhaps it was a little bit quieter ... and it was Ramadan," he said, referring to the Muslim fasting month.
If 10 million of the eligible 15.5 million voters cast ballots, that would give a turnout of around 65%, higher than the 58% recorded in January's election, the first held after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
Sunni vote
Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense competition with Shia and Kurds.
The higher-than-forecast Sunni turnout made it possible the vote would be close - or even go the other way - and cast doubt on US hopes that the charter would succeed in moving Sunnis away from the ongoing violence.
The bar to defeat the constitution is high: The opponents must get a two-thirds vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces. They are likely to reach that threshold in the vast Sunni heartland of al-Anbar province in the west.
They must snatch the other two from among the provinces of Salah al-Din, Ninevah or Diyala, north of Baghdad.
Each of those provinces has a Sunni Arab majority, but they also have significant Shia or Kurdish minorities.
Commissioner Ayar said voting had gone well, despite hiccups in some areas, particularly al-Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where armed men exchanged fire with US and Iraqi troops in the city of Ramadi.
Al-Anbar centres closed
"In Anbar, we couldn't open all the centres. There were 207 centres that were supposed to open there and I think we opened 144," he said.
Later he said about 5850 of the planned 6230 polling sites nationwide had opened.
"But the problems were not very big and we are very happy that we finished the process without hearing that anybody was killed in the streets."
At a news conference, the Electoral Commission officials said eight of Iraq's 18 provinces saw turnout above 66%.
In seven provinces, turnout was between 33% and 66%.
Two provinces showed a turnout below 33%, the officials said. No data was available for al-Anbar.
Speaking to Aljazeera from the western town of al-Qaim, an Iraqi journalist, Falih Abd al-Karim reported: "There were no polling centres in the town so we could not participate in the process."
Because of the US military operation Iron Fist, residents of al-Qaim - estimated to be more than 150,000 - were unable to vote, al-Karim said.
The journalist added that if residents had been able to vote, most had intended to vote against the constitution.
In the western town of Rawa, to the east of al-Qaim, a polling centre was open and attendance was high.
Al-Karim reported most locals had voted against.
In Haditha two centres opened but attendance was poor because of the intense presence of US and Iraqi forces, with Humvees and armed vehicles parked in front of each centre.
High turnout had been expected in the Shia Muslim south and the Kurdish north, and low turnout in Sunni Arab areas.
Counting started
Ballot counting has already begun. Commissioner Ayar said he expected the commission would be able to release partial results on Monday, and a final, but still uncertified, tally on 20 October.
Asked whether the election had been free and fair, Ayar said the international and United Nations' monitors had told electoral commission staff that they were satisfied.
"All of the monitors we talked to said that everything had gone well and that there were no serious problems," he said.
Ayar gave no clues about the results, but polling centre directors in some areas were more forthcoming.
At the Sajdat voting centre in Najaf province, the director said that of 3125 registered voters 2099 had cast their ballots.
All but 30 had voted yes - an approval of more than 98%.
In Miqdadiya, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, the head of Konoz polling centre said 2166 voters were registered, of whom only 366 turned up, 299 of them voting no and 67 yes.
In Yathreb, a Sunni Arab town north of Baghdad, 3500 people voted, with 3497 of them voting no and just three yes.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BA9FB67F-74A2-4609-AED5-8BEAE587CC9A.htm
"I was thinking that maybe we could get around 11 million voters. But Iraqis are getting more used to going and voting now, so perhaps it was a little bit quieter ... and it was Ramadan," he said, referring to the Muslim fasting month.
If 10 million of the eligible 15.5 million voters cast ballots, that would give a turnout of around 65%, higher than the 58% recorded in January's election, the first held after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
Sunni vote
Sunni Arabs voted in surprisingly high numbers, many of them hoping to defeat it in an intense competition with Shia and Kurds.
The higher-than-forecast Sunni turnout made it possible the vote would be close - or even go the other way - and cast doubt on US hopes that the charter would succeed in moving Sunnis away from the ongoing violence.
The bar to defeat the constitution is high: The opponents must get a two-thirds vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces. They are likely to reach that threshold in the vast Sunni heartland of al-Anbar province in the west.
They must snatch the other two from among the provinces of Salah al-Din, Ninevah or Diyala, north of Baghdad.
Each of those provinces has a Sunni Arab majority, but they also have significant Shia or Kurdish minorities.
Commissioner Ayar said voting had gone well, despite hiccups in some areas, particularly al-Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where armed men exchanged fire with US and Iraqi troops in the city of Ramadi.
Al-Anbar centres closed
"In Anbar, we couldn't open all the centres. There were 207 centres that were supposed to open there and I think we opened 144," he said.
Later he said about 5850 of the planned 6230 polling sites nationwide had opened.
"But the problems were not very big and we are very happy that we finished the process without hearing that anybody was killed in the streets."
At a news conference, the Electoral Commission officials said eight of Iraq's 18 provinces saw turnout above 66%.
In seven provinces, turnout was between 33% and 66%.
Two provinces showed a turnout below 33%, the officials said. No data was available for al-Anbar.
Speaking to Aljazeera from the western town of al-Qaim, an Iraqi journalist, Falih Abd al-Karim reported: "There were no polling centres in the town so we could not participate in the process."
Because of the US military operation Iron Fist, residents of al-Qaim - estimated to be more than 150,000 - were unable to vote, al-Karim said.
The journalist added that if residents had been able to vote, most had intended to vote against the constitution.
In the western town of Rawa, to the east of al-Qaim, a polling centre was open and attendance was high.
Al-Karim reported most locals had voted against.
In Haditha two centres opened but attendance was poor because of the intense presence of US and Iraqi forces, with Humvees and armed vehicles parked in front of each centre.
High turnout had been expected in the Shia Muslim south and the Kurdish north, and low turnout in Sunni Arab areas.
Counting started
Ballot counting has already begun. Commissioner Ayar said he expected the commission would be able to release partial results on Monday, and a final, but still uncertified, tally on 20 October.
Asked whether the election had been free and fair, Ayar said the international and United Nations' monitors had told electoral commission staff that they were satisfied.
"All of the monitors we talked to said that everything had gone well and that there were no serious problems," he said.
Ayar gave no clues about the results, but polling centre directors in some areas were more forthcoming.
At the Sajdat voting centre in Najaf province, the director said that of 3125 registered voters 2099 had cast their ballots.
All but 30 had voted yes - an approval of more than 98%.
In Miqdadiya, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, the head of Konoz polling centre said 2166 voters were registered, of whom only 366 turned up, 299 of them voting no and 67 yes.
In Yathreb, a Sunni Arab town north of Baghdad, 3500 people voted, with 3497 of them voting no and just three yes.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BA9FB67F-74A2-4609-AED5-8BEAE587CC9A.htm
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"We have been informed that 10 of our employees from the voting stations in Jazirah and Khalidiyah were kidnapped," an election official told reporters on Saturday.
An AFP correspondent in the region quoted witnesses as saying armed men seized the workers as they headed to the vote stations they were to staff.
The referendum, which went off quietly elsewhere in Iraq, ran into a few problems in al-Anbar, where Sunni Arabs opposed the draft charter.
According to the commission, 60 voting stations of a total of 207 in the province did not open for security reasons.
In general, however, the vote was spared problems that marked general elections on 30 January, during which 36 people had died.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8536C160-F78D-4270-870E-8ADBFAAE5114.htm
A total of 15.5 million voters were registered to vote on the charter, which is expected to establish a democratic framework for a new Iraq; but has sharply divided the country on ethnic lines and was only drafted after weeks of tortuous negotiations.
More than 61% of Iraqis, who were registered to vote in Saturday's constitutional referendum, cast their ballots according to a preliminary estimation, independent electoral commission member Abdel Hindawi said.
Some voters praised the referendum as a godsend of freedom after decades of dictatorship in Iraq. Others called it the work of evil foreign occupiers.
No matter how Iraqis reacted to the draft constitution as they voted, the document touched off a furious debate about issues as central to democracy as religion and state, national identity and women's rights.
Debate
"This is not democracy," Youssef Ibrahim al-Shimiri, 76, a retired male nurse said after voting "no" in a mostly Sunni Arab area of Baghdad.
"There can be no democracy if it arrives on tanks, and children and women are killed every day," he said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"How can this constitution fail to clearly state Iraq's Arab identity? Iraq is Arab, and there should not be a shred of doubt about that."
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a Sunni woman emerging from a polling station said she had voted "no" because of her Muslim religion and her pride in Iraq.
"It is against Islam. It's a Western constitution," she said. "Therefore it is said to be forbidden."
Fragmenting Iraq
Many Sunni Arabs reject the charter, believing it will fragment Iraq, tear it away from the Arab world and hand power to the Shia majority - and they feel the United States is ultimately behind the document, which was drawn up in long negotiations between Iraq's factions.
Shia, meanwhile, mainly support the document, largely because it gives them considerable self-rule powers in the south.
But that was not why Muna Ali supported it. The 24-year-old Shia said her reason was that the document could improve women's rights in this male-dominated country.
"I believe this constitution could improve our situation, maybe even allow more women to be elected to the National Assembly," she said in Baquba, 60km northeast of Baghdad.
Constitution praised
Nearby, fellow Shia Hussein Ali, 85, praised the constitution for making it impossible for future Iraqi governments to suppress the country's Shia majority as Saddam Hussein and his Sunni cronies did for decades.
"I will say "yes" because I suffered and I was oppressed during the former regime," Ali said before entering one of the many school polling stations in Iraq that were protected by security forces and cement walls. "I can now vote freely," he said with pride.
Many Iraqis emerging from the polling centres indicated that they had not even read the draft constitution that was distributed across Iraq.
Others said that even if they had, they would simply vote the way their religious or political parties had told them to.
But some Iraqis saw the referendum as a chance to go their own way.
In Sadr City, a mostly Shia area of Baghdad controlled by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against the US-led coalition in 2004, people were widely expected to vote "yes." But not Haitham Aouda Abdul-Nabi, a 23-year-old co-owner of a convenience store.
When he showed up at a secondary school to vote in Sadr City, a poor area that is home to an estimated 2.5 million Shia, he said: "More than 90% of Iraq's Shia support the constitution, but not me."
Tired of chaos
Why? Because he is tired of all the chaos in Iraq since the fall of Saddam: killings by the Sunni-led fighters, fighting between them and US forces, squabbling in Iraq's mostly Shia 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."
Whatever stand voters took in their debate over the constitution and Iraq's future, the intensity of the discussion on such complex issues even drew the attention of one teenager.
In Mahmoudiya, a mostly Sunni town 30km south of Baghdad - an area known as the Triangle of Death because of its violence - 14-year-old Shia Ali Hussein tried without success several times to enter a polling station and vote.
"They won't let me in because I'm too young," he said outside the school, where he had been waiting for several hours. "But I want to say "yes" to the constitution."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4983150A-DC80-46FE-B9F4-254983A08038.htm
Bitter emotions in al-Aadhamiya left few doubts that whoever leads Iraq after December elections has a long way to go to win over the trust of the Sunni community.
Sunnis interviewed in other parts of Baghdad were divided over the constitution, some voting yes and others no.
But there were no mixed signals in the capital's Sunni heartland fiercely opposed to the charter drafted by Shia and Kurdish leaders.
The mood in the al-Aadhamiya district of the capital on Saturday contrasted sharply with other areas, even nearby Sunni districts.
"Of course I am voting no," said Muhammad Hasan. "This document neglects the Sunnis and it just helps the Shia. We want a united Iraq , not one that is carved up into federal states."
Deep frustrations
The constitution has deepened frustrations among many Sunnis who worry that it will give Shia and Kurds power and oil resources in regions where they dominate and leave Sunnis disadvantaged.
Many Sunnis also say Iraq's Shia leaders are heavily influenced by Shia Iran.
Although it was impossible to tell if any Sunni guerrillas went to al-Aadhamiya ballot boxes to reject the charter, teenagers around the voting station had the same stern faces as the young men who fill the ranks of the uprising.
"No, no, no," chanted one group of young men as they entered the polling station.
"This constitution was made by the Americans and Israelis and Iran and their friends in the Iraqi government," said a teenager as his friends nodded in agreement.
Yes vote
A man and his wife came out smiling and saying they had voted yes. But they turned out to be Shia living in al-Aadhamiya, a sprawling district with mostly two-storey houses.
Few policemen were in sight as voters walked along narrow roads to vote in the Safina school, unlike other polling stations heavily guarded by Iraqi and US forces backed by Bradley fighting vehicles.
Unidentified armed groups in al-Aadhamiya have warned that Iraqis who work with Americans or the Iraqi security forces will be killed. Some people have been shot or beheaded and left on the side of the road with a sign with the word "spy" left on their chests.
Rejection
Some voters said they knew nothing about the constitution, but that did not stop them from rejecting it.
"I don't know anything about it. Nobody told us. But I said no. After all, it was drawn up by the Americans," said Ahmad Abu Zahra.
As they left the polling station, two young men tried to outdo one another on how they rejected the charter.
"I said no and no, said one. "The government asked us to say yes but I said no twice," said his friend.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CA59F4D8-16CF-4790-8376-749D0BB83686.htm