IT IS remarkable that in a ‘constitutional referendum’ organised by a puppet government, in a country under occupation by the US and the UK, in the middle of a series of savage US offensives where the counting and recounting of votes has taken nine days accompanied by widespread allegations of fraud and ballot rigging, that the occupiers and their puppets have had to admit that in at least three of Iraq’s provinces, the constitution was rejected by big majorities, in two of them by over two thirds of the voters.
In fact, the war is intensifying with yesterday being the day that the US casualty rate reached 2,000 dead and 17,000 seriously injured.
A defeat in the three provinces by two thirds majorities would have sunk the constitution, but of course, considering what is at stake, it was never likely that the occupiers and their puppets would allow this to happen.
As it was, in Al Anbar province 96.5 per cent voted no and just 3.4 per cent yes, in Salah-a-Din province 87 per cent voted no, both well above a two thirds majority, while in Nineveh province 55 per cent of the voters rejected while 44 per cent accepted, less than the two thirds majority required to sink the constitution.
In another province, Diyala, it was a very close-run thing, with the puppet government’s figures showing that 51 per cent voted for the constitution and 48 per cent voted against.
The ability of three provinces to reject a national decision if they could muster two thirds of the voters was adopted to suit the three Kurdish provinces, so that they could never have a national decision legally imposed on them.
The imperialists did not spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the war in Iraq to allow the areas in the heart of the insurgency the same right.
In fact, the spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC), Salih al-Mutlaq, yesterday called for re-running the referendum in some governorates under international and Iraqi judicial supervision.
Al-Mutlaq said that results of the referendum were forged in some governorates.
‘We believe that the results have been forged in Mosul, Diyala and most southern Iraqi governorates,’ he said.
‘We call for repeating the referendum in Diwaniya, Samawa, Mosul and Diyala governorates under UN and Iraqi judicial supervision. We will recognise the constitution in this case only.’
So the end result of this constitutional exercise by the occupiers and their puppets, where just over 60 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote, is a conviction amongst the vast majority of the Iraqis who support the insurgency that the poll was rigged, and that they have been cheated.
This conviction will lead to a sharpening of the insurgency and not a decline.
There is now due to be a general election in December. This election will not solve anything for the US-UK occupiers.
The facts are, as the just leaked MoD poll in Iraq shows, that 72 per cent of Iraqis have no confidence in the armies of occupation, 65 per cent of the population of Maysan province supports attacks on British troops, 82 per cent of Iraqis are opposed to the occupation armies, and just one per cent of Iraqis believe that the occupation armies have improved the security situation.
What this means is that as long as Iraq is occupied the insurgency will continue to grow.
Since the withdrawal of the occupiers would see their puppet government dismantled, there will be no easy withdrawal. So after December whatever the flavour of the puppet regime that emerges, the insurgency will continue, until the occupiers are driven out and their puppets with them.
