Today Iraqis are voting to approve or disapprove their new constitution. I’ll be linking to posts from Iraqi bloggers or milbloggers in Iraq throughout the day. I suspect that iffy power conditions may slow down their posting.
Iraqi bloggers
A Citizen of Mosul voted. He notes (from the comments section):
We (me and my wife) went to the votting center and vote. There were over crowd there, at least two strykers, two other American vehicles, and many Police cars there.
But we found our way in, and vote “NO”.My impresson is that most of the people I met there, were goining to vote NO.
Najma of A Star from Mosul went to the polling place with her parents and the rest of her family (although she’s too young to vote herself). And complains about biased press coverage:
Seeing the numbers of voters, the number of women and men, gave me an assurance that the media outside is biased. Sunnis went out to vote, 2 times in the morning the Peshmargah came and closed the voting center, but it was re-opened.
Sunshine of Days of My Life went along, too.
An Average Iraqi (picture above) voted, too.
Hammorabi expects a big “Yes” turnout.
Zeyad of Healing Iraq voted “No”.
Omar of Iraq the Model voted “Yes” and reports that the polls are now closed.
Sooni, who had been leaning “No”, explains why he has changed his vote to “Yes”. And has some pictures of the voting to show you. They’re proud. They should be.
Truth About Iraqis is posting up a storm on the election. Here is his report of preliminary results:
Initial reports an overwhelming ‘no’ vote in Falluja.
No reports from Mosul, but from Dahok and Sulaimaniya initial indications are a huge vote for ‘yes’.
Abdel Hindawi, an independent electoral commission member, told Agence-France Presse that initial estimates indicate 61% of registered voters cast their ballots.
More than 15.5 million Iraqis were registered to vote.
Hamza Hendawi is reporting from Baghdad only. Please keep that in mind. The attacks I listed went far beyond that.
As polls closed, violence seems to have subsided.
Overwhelming majority of Turkomen have voted ‘no’.
Sadr City has mostly ‘voted’ yes after Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr told his followers to vote according to their conscience and what their religious leaders tell them. He did not disclose how he would vote.
We’ll have to wait several days for the actual results.
Mama of Emotions… finally made up her mind and voted. She has her own ideas about why people voted “Yes” or “No”.
Omar of Iraq the Model says the latest electoral commission press conference has reported the preliminary turnout levels:
High= more than 66%
Moderate= 33% – 66%
Low= less than 33%Duhok: moderate.
Erbil: moderate.
Sulaymania: high.
Mosul: high.
Kirkuk: high.
Diyala: high.
Anbar: unknown.
Baghdad: high.
Babil: high.
Kerbala: high.
Wasit: moderate.
Salahiddin: high.
Al-Muthana: moderate.
Al-Qadisiya: low.
Najaf: high.
Thi Qar: moderate.
Maysan: moderate.
Basra: moderate.
Truth About Iraqis has his own link round-up (mostly media reports) including reported attacks, turnout statistics and irregularities, etc.
Milbloggers
Major K remarks on the pre-election preparations.
Major K follows up:
The polls are now closed. The streets are empty except for security forces and election workers. There have been a few sporadic attacks today, but they were of negligible effect. Reports were largely postitve, with over 1 million people voting in our 1st Brigade’s Sector and reports of people dancing and singing in the street in the 2nd Brigade Sector.
A good day, indeed.
From Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum:
Last night I went on a patrol with Civil Affairs, our mission was to see if everything was ready for today’s vote. We drove around from site to site accessing the security of the polling sites, what we found was an Iraqi population that was calm and eagerly awaiting their chance to vote once again, and take part in their own destiny. The day passed virtually without incident, and once again the Iraqi people took a step towards complete independence. Today didn’t belong to the insurgency, or the Coalition, it belonged to all of Iraq, and everyone in it.
I’ll be very interested to see if all these predictions of massive “no” votes pan out. There is a reason for secret ballots: people, especially in oppressed societies, are often afraid to say how they really feel. I remember well how most press and poll predictions in Nicaragua were that the brutal tyrant Noriega would be voted into power by a landslide, and instead he lost decisively. Nicaraguans by and large admitted to saying what they thought they were expected to say to pollsters and journalists, but to voting their hearts when they were alone in the voting booth.
Note that I am *NOT* predicting that this is what’s going on here. Maybe the opposition in Sunni areas will turn out to have been intense. But we won’t know until we get the results.
You and me both, Dean. My own intuition is that the Sunni vote will be divided—not enough No’s to defeat the constitution in the required three provinces.
The constitution referendum brings a tear to my eye. But of course, I can’t help but think this is going to change anything, sectarian violence will continue and our military presence will still be seen as an occupation and not a liberation, and this exercise in social engineering will cost our grandkids dearly. The invasion of Iraq will go down as one of the most damaging mistakes in American history. But yeah, gotta love those purple fingers, even if voters have to walk four miles to cast a ballot in the nation’s capital city.
Billy Bob Tweed, I don’t honestly have any idea whether this referendum is another step on the road to lasting democracy in Iraq or not. I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq and don’t feel the need to defend it now.
But once we had invaded the country, removed the standing government, and occupied the country we had legal and ethical obligations and I feel very strongly that we need to live up to those.
Note also that I linked to every Iraqi blogger who posted about the actual voting whether they voted or not and whether they voted “Yes” or “No”. It’s an important story, the Iraqi bloggers are experiencing it firsthand, and I think their voices deserve to be heard.
Constitution? Don’t be a bloody sap, it’s mere paper. There is nothing that changes the real incentives for the hard men with guns. Lebanon. I wish it were otherwise, I’d be richer for it, but it is not.
If you’ve read cheerleading for the new Iraqi constitution, Lousbury, it hasn’t been here. I don’t honestly care whether it’s approved or disapproved. But the process, especially the sense of ownership that participation grants is worth more than the paper.
The men with guns need more than incentives to succeed in keeping Iraq in a state of chaos. They need at least the acquiescence of the remainder of the populace. And the more participation in even as flawed a democratic process as exists in Iraq, IMO the greater the likelihood that acquiescence will fade.
Had it been left to me we would never have invaded Iraq. But, as I wrote above, now we have both a legal and a moral obligation (not to mention strategic necessity) to establish a stable society there that’s at least no worse than Saddam.
I remember well how most press and poll predictions in Nicaragua were that the brutal tyrant Noriega would be voted into power by a landslide, and instead he lost decisively.
You didn’t remember it that well. Noriega was president of Panama.
And Noriega wasn’t voted out of office, he was forced out of office by a US invasion launched by the first President Bush.
Frankly I don’t see anyone owning any process, I see a several disparate interest groups jockeying for position for power grabs and bites at the rent-extraction pie.
Looks like an Iraqi version of the communal conflict dynamics in Lebanon (with caveats as to differences). Elections, constitutions: all quite meaningless.
I hope I am wrong, I’ll be far wealthier for it, but I haven’t been so far.
I think Dean means Danny Ortega.
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