Baghdad, Iraq – There are no red states or blue states. Ballots won’t have hanging chads. But Iraq’s constitutional battle appears headed for an election-day showdown that – similar to recent U.S. presidential elections – will be decided by one or two battleground provinces.
A draft of the historic charter is almost certain to win approval this week in the National Assembly, which is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
But Sunni Arabs have strong reservations about the document, and with negotiations still stalled Tuesday, they are gearing up to defeat the charter in an Oct. 15 referendum.
Under election rules, a majority of Iraqis must approve the constitution, but the charter can still be defeated if three of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote “no” with a two-thirds majority.
Political strategists predict a hard-fought campaign will focus on a handful of ethnically and politically divided provinces, with regions around Mosul and Amarah playing the swing roles that Florida and Ohio did in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential contests.
“The constitution is supposed to be an issue for all Iraqis, but the campaign is going to be concentrated in those governorates where people think it could be rejected,” said Nabil Salem, a University of Baghdad professor and political analyst.
A showdown could still be avoided if Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers can find consensus and jointly endorse the proposed constitution by Thursday, when the National Assembly will vote.
“Many of the issues have been finalized and agreed upon,” Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, said Tuesday. “I believe that the next three days will be enough to witness the birth of a constitution.”
President Bush, who is betting that adoption of a new constitution will stem insurgent violence in Iraq and help to eventually bring home more than 130,000 American troops, said Tuesday that Sunnis have a choice.
“Do they want to live in a society that is free, or do they want to live in violence?” he asked.
But hopes for a broad consensus were dimming fast. Humam Hammoudi, a Shiite cleric who heads the committee charged with drafting the charter, acknowledged Tuesday that several divisive issues likely wouldn’t be settled by the time the assembly votes.
Many Sunni leaders, who have complained that the proposed constitution would make Iraq’s central government too weak and lead to the breakup of Iraq, didn’t even attend a committee meeting Tuesday where Shiite and Kurdish leaders celebrated their work. Some top politicians are speaking of irreconcilable differences.
Sunni Arabs are vowing to take the fight to the polls.
“We will have our say Oct. 15,” said Ayad Al-Ani of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni political party.
The three-province veto provision in the constitutional referendum rules was originally crafted at the behest of the Kurds, who dominate three northern provinces. They feared the constitutional review process could be dominated by Arabs.
But after parliamentary elections in January handed power chiefly to Shiite Arabs and Kurds, the constitutional veto clause has become the last bargaining chip of Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s population and constitute majorities in at least two provinces.
