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Voting Tallies Provoke
Investigation
As US Jets Kill 70
By Juan Cole
10/18/05 "ICH
" -- --
The US military launched air strikes around Ramadi on Monday,
killing 70 persons. Iraqi police maintained that 20 of them were
innocent civilians, including some children. The US military said it
had received no such reports. Five US GIs were killed at Ramadi this
weekend, and the city largely refused to have anything to do with
the constitutional referendum. Whatever the reality, Sunni Arabs,
whose nerves are raw from losing in their attempt to stop the
constitution, will likely believe the story about the US bombing
children. The guerrilla war is set to go on a long time.
Suspicions of irregularities in the voting tallies being
reported in some provinces in Iraq have provoked the Higher
Electoral Commission to conduct an investigation. In six
Shiite-majority provinces in the South, 95 percent or more of voters
are reported as having cast votes favoring the constitution. The
proportion of those voting "yes" was not in and of itself suspicious
in those provinces, but the commission felt that anything over 90
percent should be looked at again.
The provinces affected seem largely to be in the hands of the
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and it seems to me
possible that SCIRI ballot counters may have been overly
enthusiastic about the constitution. Personally, I think this
phenomenon is a harbinger of things to come in the Dec. 15
parliamentary elections.
Sunni Arab leaders warned of serious consequences if fraud were
proved with regard to the vote in Ninevah. Aljazeera is reporting
that there are contradictory reports for Ninevah, the third possible
province in which Sunni Arabs might hope to defeat the constitution
by a 2/3s margin. One report said that the "no" vote there was 55
percent, not enough to cause the 3-province veto to kick in (Sunni
Arabs in Anbar and Salahuddin had already rejected it by a 2/3s
majority). But Abd al-Razzaq al-Juburi, the secretary general of the
Independent Iraqi Front, told the correspondent for al-Zaman
that the "no" vote in Ninevah exceeded 75 percent, according to his
conversations with election workers. He said that they were under
enormous pressure not to speak about this issue from unidentified
higher-ups. (My guess is that al-Juburi is himself exaggerating-- a
75 percent rejection is too high for Ninevah.) Another official said
that out of 778,000 votes cast in Ninevah, 442,000 were "no" votes,
and 353,000 were "yes" votes.
It does seem likely that all three Sunni Arab-majority provinces
have rejected the constitution, even if not by the margin required
to defeat it, and that this outcome is the worst possible one. For
the rejection to be consistent within a single bloc is a very bad
sign for the future of the country.
The Washington spinmeisters who are trying to say that the mere fact
of the Sunnis voting is a good thing, even if they voted against the
constitution, do no know what they are talking about. Political
participation is not always a positive thing. The Nazis after all
were elected to the Reichstag. And Serbs consistently voted for
Milosevic and other ultra-nationalists. Nobody in Washington thought
it positive that Iranian hardliners came out in some numbers to vote
for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some elections are tragedies for a nation.
This constitutional referendum was one of them.
Even without a hint of fraud, the new constitution is provocation
enough. It probably reduces the Sunni Arab share of national
petroleum resources to 5 or 10 percent. The Association of Muslim
Scholars was hopping mad. AP says, ' "If the constitution was
passed, the attacks will definitely rise against the occupation
forces and the security situation is going to get worse," said Sheik
Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a prominent cleric. '
In contrast, Iran is jumping up and down for joy that the
constitution appears to have passed and that there will be elections
Dec. 15 for a 5-year parliament, predicting a "bright future" for
Iraq. Fox Cable News might consider booking more Iranian officials;
they seem to be entirely with the program.
Al-Zaman says that in Babil province, with its capital at Hilla,
there was 65 percent turnout and 70 percent voted in favor of the
constitution. This result is plausible, since Babil is a mixed
province with Sunnis as well (in the so-called "Triangle of Death.")
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the
University of Michigan - Visit his blog
http://www.juancole.com
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