Iraq’s leaders vowed to unveil a draft Constitution on Monday after marathon talks edged the country’s ethnic and religious rivals towards a potentially historic compromise.
A special sitting of the Parliament has been called in the capital on Monday evening to review the text, hours before a midnight deadline for approval.
But there was no guarantee that the draft would be ready in time, as haggling continued on Sunday night on outstanding disputes related to federalism and the role of Islam.
Senior negotiators who gathered at President Jalal Tabalani’s residence to paper over the cracks signalled that there would be an eleventh hour deal on Monday.
”At this [parliamentary] meeting the draft Constitution is expected to be delivered,” said Nasser al-Awadi, a Sunni Arab member of the constitutional drafting committee. Kurdish and Shia negotiators echoed his optimism.
The United States ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told ABC news: ”The Iraqis tell me that they can finish it and they will finish it tomorrow.”
If so, the US president, George Bush, is likely to welcome the draft as proof that Washington’s timetable for political progress is on track, despite the continued violence which at the weekend claimed the lives of six American soldiers and more than a dozen Iraqis. A grave less than two weeks old, with 30 bodies, was also found in Baghdad.
US and Iraqi officials billed the new Constitution as a way to stabilise the country and drain support from the Sunni-driven insurgency. After parliamentary approval, it is to be voted on in a referendum in October, paving the way for elections in December.
If the deadline is missed, the Parliament must dissolve and call elections immediately, or change the interim Constitution by a three-quarters majority to buy the negotiators more time. Certain politicians predicted that the deadline would be extended by two weeks.
A third option is to declare the agreed parts of the draft the new Constitution and to add amendments when the contentious parts are agreed.
There is consensus that the new state should have an independent judiciary, a legislature and an executive with a powerful prime minister and ceremonial president.
It was unclear to what extent Islam would be recognised as a source of law — a battleground between Shia conservatives linked to Iran and moderates and liberals who want strong safeguards for women and religious minorities.
Autonomy for Iraq’s Kurds, a reality in northern provinces since the 1991 Gulf war, is a fait accompli, but it was unclear if the Shia would get autonomy for a Shia-dominated southern region encompassing most of Iraq’s oil and almost half its 26 million population.
Arab Sunnis, a minority favoured by Saddam Hussein, fear that loosening Baghdad’s control will break up the country or impoverish them in the barren centre while the Shia and Kurds get the oil.
The US ambassador was confident that the restive minority would be appeased.
”This Constitution can be a national compact bringing Sunnis in, isolating extremists and Ba’athist hardliners and setting the stage over time for defeating them.”
Khalilzad did not spell out the alternative — that the draft could further alienate Sunnis — but that appeared possible. ”We will not be subdued and will continue to cling to our stance,” said Kamal Hamdoun, a Sunni negotiator. ”We don’t accept federalism.”
The Constitution, which will be dead if it is rejected by two-thirds of voters in three of the 18 provinces, is vulnerable in a referendum, since Sunnis hold majorities in four provinces.
Another danger is that the Constitution will store up more trouble by fudging contentious issues such as the status of ethnic and sectarian militias and control over the oil city of Kirkuk. – Guardian Unlimited Â