Iraqis voted amid tight security on Saturday in a landmark referendum on a Constitution aimed at turning a new page on the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
About 15,5-million Iraqis were registered to vote on the charter, but a key question was how many would brave threats by insurgents who have vowed to disrupt the democratic process.
Despite the strict security lockdown, a sabotage attack on a power-line cut electricity to Baghdad and the main southern city of Basra, plunging the cities into darkness.
President Jalal Talabani voted early inside Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone after urging Sunni Arabs to choose politics over violence.
Many Sunnis, who make up about 20% of Iraq’s 26-million population, fear federal provisions in the charter could lead to the break-up of Iraq and leave control of its vast oil wealth in the hands of Shi’ites and Kurds.
”The Sunni Arab brothers should understand that their aspirations will be achieved through political action and not violence and terrorist acts,” Talabani, a Kurd, told the private Asharqia television channel late on Friday.
Chief electoral officer Adil al-Lami said a number of voting stations had come under fire in southern Baghdad just as voting began, after four suffered similar attacks late on Friday. No casualties were reported.
Shortly after polls opened, dozens of men and women entered a voting station in central Baghdad. About 40 police officers checked identity papers and searched voters before they cast their ballots, a correspondent said.
Cellphones were not allowed inside the stations, and a curtained area was reserved for searches of women.
In Hilla, south of Baghdad, Shi’ite mosques called by loudspeaker for people to vote in favour of the charter, backing the recommendation of Iraq’s revered top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
Baghdad streets and markets were almost deserted, while the power cut forced many in the capital to rely on portable generators.
Saboteurs attacked the main power line between Kirkuk and Baiji that serves Baghdad, an interior ministry source said. The main southern city of Basra was also blacked out overnight.
In one of five voting stations in Fallujah, an insurgent hotbed in the volatile Al-Anbar province, 35 voters stood in line to cast their ballots soon after voting began, despite insurgent threats.
There have been six attacks against offices of the country’s main Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, since it expressed support for the charter.
An al-Qaeda group said it intended to threaten the ”collaborator party so that it doesn’t express itself in the name of Sunnis”.
In one city, posters distributed outside a prominent Sunni mosque showed Iraq cut up by bloody sabres held by hands with United States and Iranian flags and declared: ”No to the Constitution that tears the unity of Iraq.”
‘Do you approve?’
Voters are being asked a single question: ”Do you approve the draft Constitution of Iraq?”. The charter requires a simple majority to be approved, but it will be rejected if two-thirds of the votes in at least three of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote no.
Iraqi leaders on Wednesday reached a deal approving last-minute additions to the draft in a bid to bring Sunnis on board, including the creation of a panel to consider further amendments after new elections on December 15.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, emphasised rising support for the Constitution among Sunni leaders.
Khalilzad said if the Constitution is adopted in Saturday’s referendum, if parliamentary elections in December proceed smoothly and if progress is made in training Iraq security forces, the US military presence could begin to be reduced beginning sometime next year.
”Of course it will depend on the circumstances, but it can happen as early as early to mid next year, the process can start,” he said.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney said the US expected Iraqis to come out in droves to vote yes.
”I think we’re going to get a good vote, a big turnout and we certainly hope and expect the Constitution will be approved,” Cheney said in a US television interview.
High-security measures ordered for the vote include a four-day national holiday that began on Thursday, an extended curfew, a ban on civilians carrying weapons and a ban on Saturday on the use of personal vehicles.
International borders have been closed to all traffic except the transport of food, water and fuel, and Baghdad airport is shut down until Monday.
Polls opened at 7am at more than 6 000 voting centres staffed by 200 000 trained workers. They were scheduled to close at 5pm, followed by a news conference one hour later.
The Iraqi electoral commission said 52 000 official observers would oversee the vote, and since political parties were also authorised to attend, the total number could reach up to 116 000. — Sapa-AFP