Iraq makes U-turn on Charter vote rules

BAGHDAD—Iraq’s parliament bowed to UN and US pressure by reversing changes to the rules of next week’s referendum that critics deemed were unfair to opponents of the divisive new constitution. The move came as thousands of US troops widened a sweep for Al-Qaeda fighters near the Syrian border to shore up security and a top US general warned of intensified attacks in the run-up to the crucial October 15 vote.
The dramatic last minute U-turn by parliament came after MPs drew sharp criticism from the United States, the United Nations and the increasingly alienated Sunni Arab minority by changing voting rules on Sunday. The constitution will now be approved if a simple majority of all those who turn out to vote say “yes” and if two-thirds of voters in at least three provinces do not say “no.” The move was approved by 119 of the 147 MPs present.
Sunday’s change had said two thirds of “registered voters” would be required in three provinces to block the charter, but the new decision has changed this back to read just “voters”. Sunnis and the United Nations had expressed unease at the weekend decision, as the passages on approval from a simple nationwide majority still referred to “voters” — lessening the hopes of Sunni factions of voting down the charter. “It is a good decision because the changes were not correct. Unfortunately the deputies sent the wrong message to the electorate by trying to cheat on the text,” said Salah Motlak of the National Dialogue Party, a Sunni group.
The once all-powerful Sunnis, largely behind the ongoing insurgency, have enough registered voters in three provinces to torpedo the constitution, but have generally called for a boycott. “You cannot have two different meanings in one article. It’s using interpretation to your own benefit,” a representative of the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq had said Tuesday of the changes to voting rules. And US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said parliament should stick to the spirit and the letter of the original article.
The vote on the constitution is a key stage in the country’s political transition following the ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by US-led forces in April 2003, and comes ahead of planned elections in December. It is being held just four days before Saddam and seven of his former henchmen are due to go on trial over a massacre of Shiite villagers in 1982. They face the death penalty if convicted. The charter has caused deep divisions between the Sunnis and the rival majority Shiites and their Kurdish allies who now dominate parliament. Al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch, headed by Iraq’s most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, urged Sunnis to boycott the referendum, saying calls by Sunni groups for a “no” vote were meaningless.
Meanwhile, there were mounting signs that violence could shadow the vote. The US general commanding troops in Baghdad, William Webster, warned that Iraqi insurgents will increase their attacks in Baghdad ahead of the referendum in a bid to discredit both the government and the political process. “We believe that the insurgents will try to make a surge in their attacks inside Baghdad because of its value in trying to convince the people that this government cannot protect them and also in terms of trying to make the results of the election illegitimate,” he said. Saddam’s former right-hand man Ezzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the top official in the old regime who is still on the run, called for an escalation of the insurgency in a letter attributed to him published in the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Qods Al-Arabi.—Agencies