Posted on 10/25/2005 5:24:47 AM PDT by SandRat
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's landmark constitution was adopted by a majority of voters during the country's Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to muster enough support to defeat it, election officials said Tuesday.
Results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq showed that Sunni Arabs, who had sharply opposed the draft document, failed to produce the two-thirds "no" vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces to defeat it.
Nationwide, 78.59 percent voted for the charter while 21.41 percent voted against, the commission said. The charter required a simple majority nationwide with the provision that if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces rejected it, the constitution would be defeated.
"Whatever the results of the referendum are ... it is a civilized step that aims to put Iraq on the path of true democracy," Farid Ayar, an official with the electoral commission, said before reading the final results.
Two mostly Sunni Arab provinces _ Salahuddin and Anbar _ had voted against the constitution by at least a two-thirds vote. The commission, which had been auditing the referendum results for 10 days, said a third province where many Sunnis live _ Ninevah _ produced a "no" vote of only 55 percent.
Ninevah had been a focus of fraud allegations since preliminary results showed a large majority of voters had approved the constitution, despite a large Sunni Arab population there.
Election commission officials and U.N. officials, who also took part in the audit, "found no cases of fraud that could affect the results of the vote," Ayar said.
The constitution, which many Kurds and majority Shiites strongly support, is considered another major step in the country's democratic transformation, clearing the way for the election of a new Iraqi parliament on Dec. 15. Such steps are considered important in any decision about the future withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraq.
Many Sunni Arabs fear that the constitution will create two virtually autonomous and oil-rich mini-states of Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the south, while leaving many Sunnis isolated in poor central and western regions with a weak central government in Baghdad.
Some fear that the Sunni Arab loss in the referendum could influence more of them to join or support Sunni-led insurgents who are launching attacks across the country against Iraq's mostly Shiite and Kurdish government and U.S.-led forces.
In happier news, Reuters noted that US troops are only one death away from the milestone number of 2000.
In any nation, if an election or a referendum is won by 79% for the vote, it will be athe most amazing victory. However in Iraq, the defeated liberal media want to exactly reverse this, because a great achievement like the Iraqi Constitution approval means a great victory for the United States and President Bush, and thus it must be portrayed as the most negative thing by liberals and their media whores.
Doncha just love Reuters' concern for the poor Sunnis. If they lose a free election, that legitimizes their terrorist savagery on Iraq's majority and our military. The MSM is simply DU-espicable.
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
If any election were won by a 4 to 1 margin, it would be a landslide, but since it happened in Iraq, it's viewed by the msm, as a defeat of the sunni {terrorists/freedom fighters/patriots}.
You all know that if number 2,000 happens today, the ratification of the new Iraqi Constitution will get a small paragraph on page A22 while "NUMBER 2,000" will get 48 point type on page one.
The msm is so vile, that no matter how hard I try, I can't think of all the things that they deserve.
Quagmire Alert.
You can take these observations and predictions to the bank with you :
1) The MSM will not make a big deal out of it. Any good news will autmoatically be a non-story.
2) If a bomb explodes somewhere, *THAT* will occupy the frontpage and not this one.
3) There will be allegations of fraud and vote manipulation to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results.
4) Focus will be on the disaffected voters of 2 of the 18 provinces that overwhelmingly voted NO. The other 16 that voted YES will be ignored.
Actually, the vote was much closer than that. If you consider that two Sunni provinces clearly voted no, it would've only taken one more province to vote no to defeat the constitution, regardless of the majority outcome in the other provinces.
It is also key to note that the UN group that looked into the votes in Nineveh province where the tally was 55% against decided that there wasn't evidence of enough fraud to change the outcome. To me this indicates that there was enough fraud to make the outcome close. In all likelihood the against vote was closer to 33%, but ballot stuffing resulted in 55% against instead.
I'm just happy the document passed, because the failure of the document in three provinces while passing with an otherwise 4-1 majority would've probably have spelled out civil war, especially if vote tampering could be proven in that one province. It wouldn't have been a very big civil war though, because frankly - I think a large number of Sunnis side with the Shia on the issue of the Constitution, and I'm suspicious of the results from the other two Sunni provinces.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.