By Luke Baker
Reuters, 14 December 2005
BAGHDAD, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Iraq may pass another milestone on its U.S.-paved road to democracy when it holds an election on Thursday, but waiting on the other side is a potentially large obstruction -- reworking the constitution.
In a referendum in October, Iraqis voted "yes" to a new national charter, drawn up after months of acrimonious debate that again exposed the country's ethnic and sectarian divisions.
To patch up some of those differences, four days before the referendum, parliament agreed that parts of the charter would be renegotiated in the new year to placate Sunni Arabs, who felt it favoured the Shi'ite Muslim majority and ethnic Kurds.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq was instrumental in striking that deal, intent on keeping the Sunnis, the bedrock of the insurgency, inside the political process. On the basis of the accord, some Sunnis agreed to vote "yes" in the referendum.
According to the deal, the parliament that emerges from Thursday's vote will form a committee that has four months to come up with recommendations on how to amend the constitution.
But the process could aggravate the already deep mistrust between Shi'ites and minority Sunnis, suspicions which have pushed the country to the brink of sectarian war.
It will also force another collision between competing visions of Iraq's future -- Shi'ite and Kurdish hopes for their own autonomous, oil-rich regions in the south and north, and the Sunni desire for a strong, centralised Iraqi state.
Aware of just how crucial the renegotiation of the constitution will be, particularly when it comes to oil resources, U.S. President George W. Bush referred to it in a speech this week as he laid out the challenges ahead.
And Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, reiterated that line on Tuesday, pointing out that work would be far from over once Thursday's election is complete.
"The next assembly will also have the opportunity to amend the constitution to make it more broadly acceptable, and to pass more than 50 laws to implement the various articles of the constitution," he told reporters.
OIL FIGHT
The crucial issue is federalism, and with it access to resources. The Kurds, who have had effective autonomy in northern Iraqi since the 1991 Gulf War, are intent on cementing that separation -- they want an autonomous federal Kurdish region.
The Shi'ites, meanwhile, have given themselves the option of forging a similar federated region in the south.
Both would have a claim on oil profits, and, in particular, be the sole recipients of any revenues stemming from new oil and gas discoveries in those resource-rich regions.
The Sunnis could be left with a rump state in the middle, where little oil has been found and the land is mostly desert.
"That is the single most difficult challenge in terms of the post-December politicking that Iraqis will have to face," said Larry Diamond, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who previously worked with the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq.
If the Shi'ites and Kurds are allowed to push ahead with their plans it would be similar to decentralisation in post-colonial Nigeria in the 1960s, a move that led to civil war, Diamond said: "It's a formula for the polarisation and disintegration of the country."
The problem is the Kurds don't seem willing to renegotiate.
While Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said after the agreement to rework the charter that "the only book that cannot be changed is the Koran", his followers in Kurdistan won't want to see their dream of an autonomous region altered.
And some Shi'ites, particularly Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a pro-Iranian party that is a powerful government player, also won't want to give up on a strong Shi'ite mini-state.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, another Shi'ite leader, has talked of the need to compromise, but positions are likely to harden once the parliamentary committee has been set up and starts work on its bloc of amendment recommendations.
If changes are made, they will have to be approved by a majority in parliament, and then in a referendum. If two-thirds of voters in three provinces say "no" -- and Sunnis have a majority in three provinces -- then the referendum will fail.
----------------------
Citation: Luke Baker. "After poll, constitution will be Iraq's next hurdle," Reuters, 14 December 2005.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAK427458.htm
----------------------