Iraq Constitution Vote Not A Cure-All

The Iraqi constitution has been passed by a vote of 78% "yes". However, the raw statistic is misleading in the extreme. Many Sunnis have a firm belief that the vote in Nineveh province was rigged to provide a vote that would fail to reach the needed two thirds saying "no" - it returned a 55.08% "no" vote. Two other provinces rejected the constitution by huge "no" votes of 96.9% and 81.75%.

Sunni figures talked of widespread fraud after hearing the final results.

Saleh al-Mutlaq, part of a Sunni Arab team that negotiated the constitution, called the referendum a "farce" and accused government forces of stealing ballot boxes to reduce the size of the "No" vote.

...A senior United Nations official in Iraq, Carina Perelli, said the election had been conducted to the highest standard.

"It has been audited, controlled - it has been done really in a very professional way," she said.

"The result is accurate. It has been checked according to the processes that we all follow when we have elections."

Laith Kubba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told the BBC the results were a "victory for the political process".

"We have to deal with them as results that decided this matter and move on to the next stage," he said.

US President George W Bush welcomed news of the result as fresh proof that Iraqis meant to "build a democracy united against extremism and violence".

Delivering a speech to military wives in Washington, he said American troops in Iraq should "complete the mission and lay the foundation of peace by spreading freedom".

Although not as incendiary as having the constitution defeated in three provinces would have been, anyone thinking this vote will have solved problems should look at this map. This will create more problems than it solves and helps polarise Iraq even further.