Open Iraq constitution thread
Comment away on the implications of the Iraqi vote on its constitution. Condi Rice is apparently pleased: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that initial assessments indicate Iraqis had probably approved a controversial constitution, although the turnout alone showed the fragile new political process has taken hold despite a deadly insurgency. “There’s a belief ...
Comment away on the implications of the Iraqi vote on its constitution. Condi Rice is apparently pleased:
Comment away on the implications of the Iraqi vote on its constitution. Condi Rice is apparently pleased:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that initial assessments indicate Iraqis had probably approved a controversial constitution, although the turnout alone showed the fragile new political process has taken hold despite a deadly insurgency. “There’s a belief that it has probably passed,” Rice told reporters traveling with her, based on people in Iraq who are seeing preliminary vote tallies. At least 63 percent of Iraqis voted Saturday, she said, an increase of about 1 million voters over the first democratic election in January for a transitional government. Much of that increase, she said, comes from the higher participation of Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslims. The violence also was lower and produced fewer lethal attacks than in January’s vote, she noted. The constitution requires a simple majority to be approved, unless two-thirds of voters in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces voted against it. Then the constitution would not pass and Iraqi leaders would be forced to draft a new document to be submitted to voters. News services from Baghdad reported Sunday that early returns suggested large numbers of voters rejected the constitution in the Sunni strongholds of Anbar and Salahuddin provinces. But according to initial results, Sunni voters may not have been able to reach the two-thirds threshold in Diyala province east of Baghdad or in Nineveh province in the north, where Sunnis also have large representation. Disputes over the constitution have been intense and threatened to deepen the religious and ethnic divide right up to the Saturday vote. But Rice said the turnout sends a strong signal to insurgents that the political process is “alive and well.” “What [the referendum] will certainly help to do is to broaden the base of the political process,” she said, and diminish the influence of those supporting violence. “Ultimately, insurgencies have to be defeated politically. You defeat them by sapping them of their political support, and increasingly Iraqis are throwing their support behind the political process, not behind the violence,” she said on the last stop of her week-long tour of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Europe.
There’s a lot riding on that last paragraph.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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