An Iraqi patient raises his inked finger after voting at a hospital in Basra. Jails and hospitals were allowed to vote in advance of the referendum Saturday on a new constitution
Posted on 10/14/2005 9:28:53 PM PDT by sonsofliberty2000
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Voting has begun in Iraq's historic constitutional referendum.
An Iraqi patient raises his inked finger after voting at a hospital in Basra. Jails and hospitals were allowed to vote in advance of the referendum Saturday on a new constitution
A Shi'ite cleric casts his ballot in a constitutional referendum in Baghdad October 15, 2005. Iraq has tightened security across the country, closing its borders and increasing police and army patrols, hoping to foil insurgents who have threatened attacks aimed at derailing the vote. The result of the referendum on a constitution could be known as early as Sunday, the head of the Electoral Commission said. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz
Iraqis vote on landmark constitution
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_dc;_ylt=AqkIH.MVKTK5RlPTKNoNFgiaK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
By Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis headed to the polls in an historic referendum on Saturday, with up to 15 million eligible voters deciding on a controversial new post- Saddam Hussein constitution that its backers hope will unite the torn country.
Amid intense security, including a ban on all traffic, voters flowed on foot to polling stations across Baghdad as they opened at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT). They are due to close at 5 p.m., unless attacks cause delays and some are kept open longer.
In Hilla to the south of the capital, Falluja to the west and Kirkuk to the north, polling sites received a steady stream of voters, many enthusiastically saying "Yes" to the draft constitution and some others just as determinedly voting "No."
In Baghdad's fortified Green Zone compound, where the Iraqi government is headquartered, President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari were two of the first to cast ballots.
"I voted 'Yes' and I urge all Iraqis, no matter their different ethnicities and religions ... to vote 'Yes' to the constitution," Talabani, a Kurd, told reporters.
The Kurdish and Shi'ite-led government strongly backs the constitution, which it was largely responsible for drafting.
The charter will be ratified if more than half of voters say "Yes," and as long as two thirds of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces do not say "No."
Prospects of a blocking "No" vote receded in recent days when one of the country's main Sunni Muslim parties threw its support behind the constitution after Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders agreed to consider amendments next year.
However, most Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the 27 million population, are believed to oppose the charter and the "No" vote is expected to dominate in their areas. In an election in January, most Sunni Arabs boycotted the vote.
In Falluja, a predominantly Sunni city that was until late last year a bastion of the Sunni Arab insurgency, Mohammed Jabber, a 35-year-old labourer, said he was intent on voting after deciding boycotting January's poll was a mistake.
"I came here to say 'No' to the referendum and to avoid the strategic error we made last time," he said. "This time we must participate in a big way and restore balance to Iraq, a balance that has been lacking since the previous election."
Others in Falluja and in areas of Kirkuk, where ethnic Turkmen oppose the constitution, also said they were voting "No." But Talabani said he did not think the veto would succeed.
HISTORIC VOTE
While January's election marked a particular watershed for Iraq after 30 years of dictatorship, Saturday was also the first opportunity for people to vote in a free referendum in decades.
The last plebiscite was held almost exactly three years ago, under Saddam's rule, and it renewed his leadership for seven more years in a vote his regime said was 100 percent positive.
Ahead of Saturday's vote, those in Baghdad and towns to the north spent a hot night without electricity after a sabotage attack on power lines blacked out the capital -- not in itself unusual, but a discomfiting reminder of the militants' reach.
Insurgents, who have threatened widespread violence during the referendum, tried to carry through on that pledge.
Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb northeast of Baghdad, three other bombs hit police in Baghdad, wounding one, and gunmen fired on some polling sites overnight, but overall security appeared to be holding.
Hussein Hendawi, the head of the Electoral Commission which is managing the vote, said things were going well and that he thought results could come as early as Sunday evening or Monday.
More than 100,000 Iraqi police and soldiers will protect more than 6,000 polling stations, with U.S. and other foreign troops ready to help out should insurgents attack.
DIVIDED OPINION
Patchy opinion polls and the sectarian arithmetic of Iraq suggest the constitution will be ratified comfortably. But talking to Iraqis across the country, there is also disquiet over a text pushed through to meet an American-backed timetable in the face of misgivings, especially among Sunni Arabs.
After threats from insurgents, who include both Iraqi nationalists and international Islamists like al Qaeda, borders were sealed for the vote. Shops and businesses have been closed since Thursday and private vehicles were banned from the roads.
The spiritual leader of much of the 60-percent Shi'ite majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as well as Kurdish leaders representing up to 20 percent of Iraqis, are urging a "Yes," probably ensuring a nationwide vote in favour.
Ratification of the constitution is a key plank in Washington's plan to start withdrawing some of its 156,000 troops. As the number of Americans to die in Iraq nears 2,000, polls there show increasing unease in the U.S. about the war.
Many Sunnis, and some Shi'ites and others, say provisions in the constitution for regional autonomy under a new, federal state structure risk breaking Iraq into sectarian and ethnic regions at war over oil.
Secular leaders and women's rights groups complain about the extent to which Islamic law is incorporated into the text.
Iraq's Sunni-ruled Arab neighbours see the hand of militant Shi'ite Iran in the rise of Iraq's southern Shi'ite majority.
Failure for the charter would mean that an election in December would elect only an interim assembly, as in January, charged with drafting a new constitution from scratch; this time though it seems Sunnis would take part and be fully represented.
If the text is ratified on Saturday, December's vote will produce a fully empowered, four-year parliament and may well usher in a very different coalition government from the present one dominated by Shi'ite Islamists and their Kurdish allies.
(Additional reporting by Hiba Moussa in Baghdad, Claudia Parsons in Hilla, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Fadil al-Badrani in Falluja and Faris al-Mehdawi in Baquba)
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago
Iraqis voted Saturday to give a "yes" or "no" to a constitution that would define democracy in Iraq, a country once ruled by Saddam Hussein and now sharply divided among its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities.
The polls opened at 7 a.m., just hours after insurgents sabotaged power lines in the northern part of the country, plunging the Iraqi capital into darkness and cutting off water supplies.
The capital was eerily quiet under clear blue skies Saturday morning. Iraqi soldiers and police ringed polling stations at schools, and driving was banned to stop suicide car bombings by Sunni-led insurgents determined to wreck the vote. Only a few citizens were seen walking to the schools, which were protected by concrete barriers and barbed wire.
President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari were shown live on Al-Iraqiya television voting in a hall in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where parliament and the U.S. Embassy are based. After putting their paper ballots in white-and-black plastic boxes, both smiled and waved to the public.
"The constitution will pave the way for a national unity," said al-Jafaari. "It is a historical day, and I am optimistic that the Iraqis will say `yes.'"
In Karrada, a heavily Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Zeinab Sahib was one of the first to cast a ballot at a school guarded by machine gun-toting Iraqi soldiers.
"Today, I came to vote because I am tired of terrorists, and I want the country to be safe again," said the 30-year-old mother of three, who was wearing a head-to-toe black chador dress. "This constitution means unity and hope."
Minor violence was reported. A roadside bomb exploded near a polling station in western Baghdad as it opened, injuring two policemen, officials said. U.S. troops exchanged fire with insurgents in Ramadi; it wasn't immediately clear if anyone was injured. South of Basra, three armed men attacked an empty polling station at 3 a.m.; the three were arrested, police said.
The charter — hammered out after months of bitter negotiations — is supported by a Shiite-Kurdish majority but has split Sunni Arab ranks after last-minute amendments designed to win support among the disaffected minority.
After the blackout, government employees working through the night managed to restore electricity in Baghdad before dawn.
The choice of target may suggest that security measures hampered militants from carrying out the sort of devastating bombings against civilians or police that they have unleashed before the vote. Nearly 450 people were killed in the 19 days before the referendum, often by insurgents using suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings.
Iraqis remain deeply divided over the approximately 140-charter draft constitution they were voting on Saturday. The country's Shiite majority — some 60 percent of its 27 million people — and the Kurds — another 20 percent — support the charter, which provides them with autonomy in the regions where they are concentrated in the north and south.
Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called on followers to go to the polls and back the constitution. A similar call during January parliamentary elections rallied millions of Shiites to vote.
However, the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the country under Saddam and forms the backbone of the insurgency, widely opposes the draft, convinced its federalist system will eventually tear the country apart into Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the south and north, leaving Sunnis in an impoverished center. Many of them feel the document doesn't sufficiently support Iraq's Arab character.
Last-minute amendments in the constitution, adopted Wednesday, promise Sunnis the chance to try to change the charter more deeply later, prompting one Sunni Arab group — the Iraqi Islamic Party — to support the draft Saturday. Most others still reject it, but a split in the Sunni vote may be enough to ensure its passage.
The United States hopes that the constitution's success will pave the way for withdrawing American troops.
Ratification of the constitution requires approval by a majority of voters nationwide. However, if two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote "no," the constitution will be defeated, and Sunni Arab opponents have a chance of swinging the ballot in four volatile provinces: Anbar, Nineveh, Salahuddin and Diyala.
In the mostly Shiite city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, lines quickly formed at polling stations Saturday morning.
Some voters carried Iraqi flags and banners saying, "Yes to the constitution." Iraqi police guarding the streets and imams at local mosques both used loudspeakers to urge Hillah residents to cast ballots.
But Haditha, a mostly Sunni Arab city 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, where a large U.S. offensive was just fought against insurgents, was much less enthusiastic.
Other than soldiers and polling station workers, no one showed up to vote in the first 90 minutes of voting. One reason was that residents had only been told of the polling site locations minutes beforehand.
Just after dawn U.S. Humvees roamed the streets, blaring the location of two polling sites in the city. The locations were kept hidden until the last minute to prevent insurgent attacks.
The main polling station was heavily guarded, located up a long, winding walkway to a schoolhouse on top of a hill. A U.S. tank, concrete barriers and metal detectors were positioned at the front of the polling station entrance along with dozens of Marines. Iraqi soldiers roamed the rest of the complex.
"I hope they have a really big turnout," said Lance Cpl. Sam Smithson of Sacramento, Calif., as he helped guard the entrance of the station. "The closer they get to independence, the closer we get to going home."
In Friday sermons across the nation, the message from Shiite pulpits was an unequivocal "yes," but it was not so clear-cut in Sunni Arab mosques — varying from "yes," "no" and "vote your conscience."
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad, Sheik Rasheed Yousif al-Khishman exhorted worshippers at the al-Raheem mosque to reject the charter, saying the draft was an "infidel constitution written by foreign hands."
In the nearby town of Samarra — another bastion of Sunni militancy — Sheik Adil Mahmoud of the influential Sunni Association of Muslims Scholars delivered a more tempered sermon. "I will go to the polls and vote 'no,' but I leave the choice to you," he said.
It's a wonder isn't it? Truly moving.
Very welcome. I decided to share it over here because it stirs the soul.
"I hope they have a really big turnout," said Lance Cpl. Sam Smithson of Sacramento, Calif., as he helped guard the entrance of the station. "The closer they get to independence, the closer we get to going home."
Tom Daschle is saddened.
We'll just tell him we feel his pain.
It was a great speech..
Missed yours posting the pics... you're very welcome. :) Thank YOU.
The purple fingers are great, but it would be even better if they used their middle fingers. You know. Just a little something to show the terrorists. =)
Iraqi women make their way to a polling station to vote in the constitutional referendum in the southern Iraqi city of Basra October 15, 2005. Polls opened on time on Saturday for the country's landmark referendum, with more than 15 million Iraqis registered to vote 'yes' or 'no' to a new draft constitution. Iraq has tightened security across the country, closing its borders and increasing police and army patrols, hoping to foil insurgents who have threatened attacks aimed at derailing the vote. REUTERS/Atef Hassan
placemark!
GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS.
GOD BLESS AMERICA, OUR PRESIDENT AND OUR ALLIES.
GOD BLESS IRAQ.
Good Night to all the night owls of FR. :)
God bless this latest grand experiment in a government of, by and for the people.
AMEN!
amen to that! night normR
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