Sunnis Angry Over Election Rules Change

In the latest sign that Iraq’s draft constitution is creating more strife than healing, Sunni Muslim leaders unleashed a storm of criticism Monday at a law that would make it nearly impossible for them to muster enough votes to defeat the charter in an Oct. 15 referendum.

But after a day of tense meetings, one of the two main political parties running the government said it had bowed to pressure from U.S. and U.N. officials here and agreed to seek a change in the legislation as early as today.

The apparently simple question that developed into Iraq’s latest political crisis is how many yes votes will be needed to adopt the constitution and how many no votes will be needed to defeat it. The Bush administration is eager for a yes vote to advance its formula for democratic rule, but is also worried about growing sectarian violence as it seeks to wind down its military presence.

Under the country’s interim charter, the constitution will take effect if more than half the voters in Iraq approve it and if two-thirds of voters in three or more provinces do not reject it.

Iraqi politicians had assumed that “voters” meant those who turned out to vote, not registered voters. But as Sunni leaders began mobilizing for a defeat of the document in the few provinces where Sunnis are concentrated, Iraq’s election commission asked the National Assembly for a clarification.

The result was a law approved Sunday by lawmakers from the ruling Shiite Muslim and Kurdish coalition. For the constitution to pass, the law said, more than half of those who turn out to vote must vote yes; for it to be defeated, two-thirds of registered voters in three or more provinces have to vote no.

The higher standard for a no vote would all but kill any chance for the charter’s rejection in heavily Sunni provinces, even if everyone turning out there voted no. The overall turnout in Iraq’s parliamentary election in January was less than 60% and far lower in Sunni areas.

“The fraud has begun right from now,” said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni politician who was on the body that drew up the proposed constitution. He and other Sunnis opposed the draft largely because it called for a decentralized government, which they fear would fragment Iraq, allowing Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north to form ministates that would dominate the oil wealth.

Isam Rawi, a member of the Sunni-led Muslim Scholars Assn., said there was already concern that a 3-day-old U.S. military assault against insurgents in western Iraq would discourage voting in that Sunni region.

Unless the law is changed, Sunni leaders said, they will call for a boycott of the referendum and refuse to accept the results. That warning set off alarm bells in the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy here.

U.S. officials had hoped that the process of writing a constitution would pacify Iraq’s warring factions; instead it drove them further apart. Despite that, the Bush administration is touting the large number of Sunnis who have registered to vote, saying their participation in politics will eventually undermine Iraq’s Sunni-led armed insurgency.

If the constitution passes, voters on Dec. 15 will elect a new National Assembly, which will form Iraq’s next government. Sunnis make up roughly 20% of the 15.8 million registered voters, election officials say.

Lawmakers of all three political factions were called into urgent meetings throughout the day Monday with U.S. and U.N. officials, who offered no comment as they struggled to broker a solution. Iraqis said the talks were making headway.

“The law doesn’t pass anyone’s test, not the U.N.’s, not the U.S.’,” said a person familiar with the talks. “I’m sure it will be fixed.”

Faridoon Abdal Qadir, a Kurdish lawmaker, said late Monday that the Kurdish bloc had promised a U.N. official that it would “suggest” that the assembly erase the double standard. Dindar Najman Shafiz, a Kurd who voted for the law, agreed that it was “faulty from a legal point of view,” but had been supported by “the general will” of the majority coalition.

By most calculations, the Sunni call to vote against the draft constitution was going to fail anyway. While Sunnis hold large majorities in two provinces, Al Anbar and Salahuddin, getting a two-thirds no vote in a third province may be hard.

Nathan Brown, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said Iraq’s ruling parties were “taking a sure victory and making sure it leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.”

In violence Monday, a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul killed a Kurdish member of Nineveh’s provincial council who led its human rights committee. Iraq’s oil minister survived an assassination attempt in Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy, killing three of his escorts.

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall in Washington and Louise Roug, Saif Rasheed and Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad contributed to this report.