- BAGHDAD -- President George
Bush hailed a new interim constitution for Iraq yesterday despite the fact
that the scheduled signing of the document on Friday was cancelled when
five key Shia members of Iraq's Governing Council refused to sign it.
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- Members of the Governing Council continued closed-door
talks yesterday in an effort to rescue the interim constitution, previously
agreed by all members of the council. Meanwhile Bush hailed the document
as 'excellent progress' towards democracy without mentioning the embarrassing
cancellation of the elaborate signing ceremony.
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- Despite promises that the council would reconvene tomorrow
'to finalise the issue and sign the law', it was becoming clear yesterday
how deep the divisions were.
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- Although US officials have tried to paint the delay in
signing as a single 'technical issue', in reality it represents one of
the most fraught issues facing a future Iraqi state.
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- At its heart is the agreement early last week by all
members of the council to a framework for deciding a full-blown constitution.
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- Under the interim arrangements, all members of the Governing
Council agreed to a system that would give a veto if any two-thirds of
voters in any three provinces in a referendum rejected it. The arrangement
was strongly supported by the Kurds.
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- The five Shias who boycotted the signing ceremony, backed
by the Shias' most powerful clergyman, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, argue,
however, that this gives an unfair advantage to the Kurds - who on average
number barely more than 400,000 in each of its three provinces, while the
total population of Iraq is 25 million.
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- The Shias want a constitution to be ratified by a simple
majority, which would favour their ethnic majority in the country.
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- The issue reveals widening divisions within Iraq's different
ethnic groups in the run-up to the handover of sovereignty by the US on
30 June.
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- 'Some of these provinces have only 400,000 or 500,000
people. We cannot have that number of people rejecting a constitution for
25 million people,' said Hamid al-Bayati, of the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
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- Another cause of dispute was the make-up of the presidency,
Bayati said. The draft approved last week set up a single President with
two deputies. Bayati said the Shias were reviving their demand for a five-person
rotating presidency. Under that proposal the presidency would rotate between
three Shias, a Kurd and a Sunni .
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- For the Kurds the effective veto is seen as a protection
against any attempt by Shias to impose Sharia law. For the Shias, there
is deep unhappiness over what they see as unfair concessions to Kurds.
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- The president of the Governing Council, Muhammad Bahr
al-Ulloum, who was among the Shia dissenters, said he expected the dispute
to be resolved by tomorrow.
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- 'We have announced that Monday is the date for the signing
of the law, and we are determined to stick to this date,' Ulloum told reporters
in the holy Shia city of Najaf.
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- The delegation of Shia dissenters was in Najaf yesterday
visiting 73-year-old Sistani at his home to discuss the next step with
the Iranian-born cleric. Sistani, a recluse who has not left his home in
more than six years, has an increasingly influential role in Iraqi politics.
His objections have already pressured US administrators into changing their
handover plans.
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- Sistani's powerful role and the willingness of the US-led
administration to bow to his demands, despite his not being on the Governing
Council or holding any political office, has become a sore point for Kurdish
negotiators.
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- 'We have a huge amount of work ahead of us,' said one
Kurdish source close to the negotiations. 'We either do it with them ...
or we do it on our own without them.'
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- Some foreign officials believe the Shias' decision to
boycott the signing ceremony may have been influenced by last week's bomb
attacks on Shia shrines in Kerbala and Baghdad that left at least 181 dead,
reinforcing Shia determination not to give up an inch of political power.
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- The political wrangling took place as four coalition
soldiers, reportedly British, were wounded on Friday in Qalah Salih after
they were fired on with handguns and rocket-propelled grenades.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1163906,00.html
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