With 'Diyala' predominantly leaning towards 'yes'one of the four key Sunni provinces holding the passing of the charter at bay, it is most likely that constitution shall be approved.
Rejection seemed more unlikely based on initial vote counts in the three key provinces that Sunni Arab opponents were relying on to vote "no" to defeat the constitution.
The last of those provinces, Diyala, supported the draft by 70 percent to 20 percent, with 10 percent of the ballots rejected as irregular, said Adil Abdel-Latif, the head of the election commission in Diyala.
The result came from a first count of the approximately 400,000 votes cast. At least one more count was being conducted to confirm the votes, which would then be sent to Baghdad, where results from all the provinces are being collected for final confirmation.
If two-thirds of voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces voted "no," the charter would be defeated. Sunni Arab opponents hoped to reach that threshold in four provinces: Anbar, Ninevah, Salahuddin and Diyala. |
