After weeks of stop-start talks, backroom deals, sleepless nights and hard political bargaining, Iraq’s governing council finally unveiled its interim Constitution on Monday, declaring it to be ”a decisive moment in the history of the new Iraq”.
But within hours the leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a statement which took the gloss from the ceremony and warned that the disagreements which had delayed the signing had not been resolved.
”This [law] places obstacles to arriving at a permanent constitution for the country that preserves its unity and the rights of its people in all their ethnicities and sects,” he said.
Hailed as one of the most liberal constitutions anywhere in the Middle East, the 25-page, 62-article document, officially titled the Transitional Administrative Law, is regarded as the vital first step in the US plan to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, and it underwrites the country’s move to full independence by the end of 2005.
Mohammed Bahr Al-Ulloom, the council president, said the law enshrined rights and freedoms for Iraq’s diverse ethnic and religious communities ”unheard of during 35 years of ruthless Ba’athist rule”.
It had been forged in a spirit of compromise between the different groups, which augured well for the time when Iraqis took full control of the political process.
Massoud Barzani, a senior Kurdish leader on the council, said: ”Nobody got everything they wanted, but there is no doubt that this document will strengthen Iraqi unity in a way never seen before.
”This is the first time that we Kurds feel that we are citizens of Iraq.”
The new constitution was passed unanimously by the Governing Council last Monday. But the official signing was delayed by the attacks on Shia worshippers in Kerbala and Baghdad and last minute objections by Ayatollah Sistani who, subsequently supported by five Shia council members, balked at provisions which give the Kurdish and Sunni Arab minorities the potential to veto a permanent constitution.
After weekend talks at the cleric’s home in Najaf, the dissenting council members agreed to sign the document unaltered, ”in the name of national unity”, despite their reservations.
It leaves such issues to a permanent constitution, including the extent and powers of the federal regions and the status of disputed territories such as Kirkuk.
Nor does it say how the provisional government that will take power on June 30 should be formed.
The Governing Council has yet to discuss the issue.
A United Nations team led by Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to visit Iraq by the end of the month to help find a mechanism acceptable to the majority of Iraqis.
But US and Iraqi officials hope the interim constitution will give fresh impetus to the political process, despite the political violence which accompanied the negotiations.
The question of legitimacy is particularly pertinent to the disempowered and disaffected Sunni Arab community. Unlike the Kurds and some of the Shia leaders on the council, few of the Sunni members can claim grassroots support. One who can, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawer, of the Shamer tribe, said he had the ammunition to go back to his people.
”They are sensible and see what is in their best interests.”
Hours before the signing ceremony, more rockets were fired at two police stations in central Baghdad. But Dr Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of the council’s drafting committee, said: ”This is the best response to terrorism.”
Residents of the Mansour district in the west of the capital gave a broad welcome to the interim law.
Mohammed Jassim, a pharmacist, said: ”It will be for the good of the people to at last see the beginning of the end of the occupation.
”The law gives us things we never had under Saddam, such as votes and freedom of speech.”
Thamer Ramsi, a Christian Iraqi, said: ”Now we have the freedoms to practise our faiths, whatever they are. But the key thing is the implementation.” – Guardian Unlimited Â