Question lingers after vote: Are the Sunnis on board?
By Tom Lasseter
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq — With the first phase of ballot counting in Iraq finished, concerns were growing yesterday that relatively few of the country's Sunni Muslims voted, raising the possibility that the election could aggravate the rift between Iraq's Sunni minority and a Shiite Muslim majority that appears poised to take power.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, called for national unity in a plea that appeared to be directed toward the Sunnis.
"We are entering a new era of our history," he said. "All Iraqis, whether they voted or not, should unite. Our mission is to build Iraq."
While Sunnis in some areas voted in higher numbers than expected, their overall turnout was low, according to a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. Mainstream Sunni political parties boycotted the vote, and many Sunnis live in the most violent areas of Iraq and are subject to intimidation by insurgents.
"Sunni participation was considerably lower than participation by the other groups, especially in areas which have seen a good deal of violence, and where intimidation is most easily carried out," said the U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Carlos Valenzuela, head of the U.N. election advisory group, also cautioned against excessive optimism.
What's next in political process
Iraq's elections began a process intended to transform the country into a democracy. Counting the votes is only the first of several steps.
Election organizers say it might be 10 days or more before they can announce final results.
After votes are counted, the 275-member transitional national assembly will first choose a largely ceremonial president and two vice presidents. They, in turn, will pick a prime minister and a Cabinet that must be ratified by the assembly.
The assembly, elected for 11 months, will draft a permanent constitution, which is supposed to be written by the middle of August.
Iraqis will hold an October referendum on the constitution.
If the document is approved, Iraqis will vote in December for a permanent government under the constitution. If the document is rejected, Iraqis will repeat the whole process, voting for a new transitional assembly to draft a new constitution.
The Associated Press
Expectations for turnout in Sunni areas "were very low," so even a somewhat higher number "doesn't mean very much, does it?" Valenzuela told The Washington Post. "It is better than expected, so it is good news. How good news it is, we don't know."
The diplomat briefing reporters on condition of anonymity said "good anecdotal information" indicated that "Sunni participation was considerably lower than participation by the other groups," although the number appeared better in mixed areas such as Baghdad, Basra in the south and Baqouba north of the capital, The Washington Post reported.
If the final results confirm a low Sunni turnout, it would mean that despite the euphoria and dancing in the streets on Sunday, as much as 20 percent of the population, most of it in the heart of the country, may not accept the results as legitimate. That could provide new fuel for the mostly Sunni insurgency.
Homam Hamoodi, an official with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group that was expected to do well in the elections, said he didn't foresee any major sectarian difficulties ahead.
JOHN MOORE / AP
U.S. Army Spc. Luke Saunders dances with Iraqi policemen as they celebrate the arrival of a convoy of ballots at a central collection point in Baghdad.
"We don't think that there will be problems with the Sunni people because of low participation in the elections," he said. "We have plans to include the Sunnis in the coming government ... because we believe that the political structure of Iraq will not be completed unless all the spectrums are included."
The elected assembly will select a president and two vice presidents. The president will then select a Cabinet. The assembly will also select a committee to draft a permanent constitution. Even if they elect few representatives to the assembly, Sunnis could be appointed to Cabinet posts and to the constitutional committee, a move that the Bush administration hopes would persuade more Sunnis to accept the government.
Ayad al-Samurrai, a senior leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, an influential Sunni group that boycotted the elections, said Sunnis don't have immediate plans to "cause any problems."
But, he said, that would last only as long as the incoming government is committed to dealing with "the oppression of the Arab Sunnis."
"We have reservations," he said.
Sunni Muslim leaders have ruled Iraq for most of the past century, despite the fact that Sunnis account for only about a fifth of the population.
ANDREW PARSONS / AP
An official of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq starts counting ballot papers under candlelight because of a power cutback in Az Zubayr.
Efforts to encourage broad Sunni participation in the post-Saddam political process have failed so far, and many Sunnis have interpreted U.S. moves to eliminate Saddam Hussein's power structure by disbanding the military and the Baath party as attacks on their group.
Sunni religious extremists also believe that the majority Shiites are apostate because of their religious beliefs.
"I don't even want to name all of the potentially more or less awful things that could arise from this," the U.S. diplomat said.
Officials yesterday continued to boast that the elections carried on despite violence. The number of insurgent attacks on Sunday, 260, was the highest recorded since the U.S. occupation began. Including insurgents, at least 65 people were killed in the fighting.
Yesterday, the jihadist group Ansar al-Islam released a tape showing what appeared to be an insurgent shooting down a British C-130 transport plane Sunday night. The British government has confirmed that the aircraft went down, and that 10 died, but it hasn't given a cause.
And at the U.S.-run detainee center of Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, riots left four dead and six injured yesterday. The violence came, according to the U.S. military, during a search for contraband.
It remains to be seen whether the Iraqi security forces and the American military can continue their momentum against the insurgency after an election day on which they guarded polling stations with relative success.
Iraqi electoral commission officials would not release voter turnout data yesterday, after promising it earlier in the day.
"We feel that maybe 8 million came to the polling centers," said Fareed Ayar, a member of the electoral commission. That would mean 57 percent turnout for the nation's 14 million registered voters. But the key for the nation's future, many agreed, is how that total breaks down.
If it represents huge turnouts among the Shiite and Kurdish populations — which together make up 80 percent of the nation — and a paltry showing by the Sunnis, trouble may follow.
Shiite officials at the Supreme Council said last night that they'd gotten indications of a landslide in their favor from polling centers in Shiite strongholds in southern Iraq, and perhaps a majority win nationally.
Although he's denied wanting any role in politics, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, appointed a group of Shiites to form the United Iraqi Alliance ticket. Al-Sistani's face was plastered across handbills and posters advertising the Alliance.
A majority vote for the Alliance could alienate Sunnis, many of whom don't trust al-Sistani, seeing him as an agent of Shiite Iran's Islamic Republic. Al-Sistani is Iranian by birth.
The Alliance's main competition was a ticket headed by interim Prime Minister Allawi, a Shiite who was formerly a member of Saddam's Baath party, and who's far more acceptable to most Sunnis.
Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondent Yasser al Salihee contributed to this report.
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