Constitution passes amid Sunni opposition

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi voters approved the country's new constitution by a majority of almost 79 percent, election officials announced yesterday. Strong opposition from Sunni Arabs kept the country in suspense during the 10 days it took to tally the vote, but ultimately fell just short of the votes needed to veto the charter.

Yet the results sharply outlined the sectarian and ethnic differences roiling the country. Provinces dominated by Kurds and Shi'ite Arabs approved the constitution by large margins. But in each of the three provinces where Sunni Arabs are believed to form the bulk of the population, the constitution was rejected by a majority of voters.

Passing the constitution is a major milestone for the United States and the US-backed Iraqi government. It paves the way for new elections Dec. 15, in which minority Sunnis, reversing their earlier boycott of the political arena, vow to participate in order to win more clout in the new government.

US and Iraqi officials hope that drawing Sunnis and other disaffected groups into the political process will stem the insurgency. Still, the final vote tally came amid renewed violence, a day after a triple car bomb killed 17 people, believed to be Iraqis, and damaged a heavily fortified hotel complex used by foreigners. And some Sunni voters said their decision to cast ballots did not mean they would stop supporting attacks on US troops.

To veto the constitution, Sunnis would have had to muster a two-thirds ''no" vote in three provinces. They did so in two of the country's most restive provinces -- 97 percent rejected the charter in Anbar, home to Ramadi and Fallujah, and 82 percent voted no in Salahuddin, home to Samarra. But in the third Sunni province, Ninevah, the capital of which is Mosul, 55 percent voted no -- short of the two-thirds mark.

Coming that close to the veto prompted some Sunnis to accuse the country's electoral commission of fraud.

''The people were shocked to find out that their vote is worthless because of the major fraud that takes place in Iraq," Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni who served on a constitution drafting committee, said on Al Arabiya television.

Sunnis and some others were concerned about provisions in the constitution that provide for strong federal regions that they believe will divide Iraq and divert the country's oil resources away from minority Sunnis. Shi'ites and Kurds generally viewed the constitution as enshrining their rights and preventing a return of the abuses their groups disproportionately suffered under Saddam Hussein.

The vote count took longer than expected because of unusually high ''yes" votes in many provinces: 99 percent in all three Kurdish provinces, and 94 percent to 99 percent in the 10 Shi'ite-dominated provinces of southern Iraq. Some Iraqi media wryly pointed out that the Oct. 15 referendum was held on the same date as the ballots in which Hussein used to receive 99 percent approval for his continued presidency.

Those tallies prompted a random audit of three provinces, but election officials said they found no significant irregularities.

They pointed to strong support for the constitution among Shi'ite and Kurdish political parties that dominate the government. Sunnis accused Kurds of stuffing or stealing ballot boxes, particularly in the swing province of Ninevah.

Election commission spokesman Farid Ayar promised that all complaints would be investigated, but said the election had been fair.

''It's a civilized step that puts Iraq on the road to democracy," he said.

Sa'ad Asim al-Janabi, a Sunni businessman who fled the country after a falling-out with Hussein and now is attempting to form a secular political coalition to challenge the religious parties that dominate the current government, said the constitution was problematic but could be amended through continued electoral politics.

''The constitution is not a bible," he said in an interview yesterday.

He pointed to a last-minute compromise that allows the new parliament, to be elected in December, to amend the constitution within its first four months in office. Previous drafts had forbidden changing major portions for eight years.

''It's a handicapped constitution, and [the provision for amendments] is kind of a wheelchair to push the constitution," Janabi said between meetings to hammer out a slate of candidates for December's votes. Janabi said the problems with the constitution are an added incentive for Sunnis to vote in December.

A boycott and fear of violence in Sunni areas kept Sunnis away from the elections last January, nearly shutting them out of the parliament that drafted the constitution.

In the latest vote, more than 9.8 million Iraqis -- 63 percent -- cast ballots on a day that was free of the widespread insurgent violence that had been predicted.