Monday, October 17, 2005

AP update:

Initial Results From Iraq's Referendum. Initial results from Iraq's constitutional referendum, as reported by election officials in each province. The figures are from the first tallies done by each province's counting centers, which must be sent to Baghdad for another check and compilation. The final official figures, likely to be announced no sooner than Tuesday, may differ. [...]

Iraq's Sunni Arabs Have Choices to Make. They turned out to vote this time, but appeared to have lost at the polls. Will Iraq's Sunni Arabs still stick with the political process they have finally joined? Or, dismayed by their country's direction, will they return to the sidelines and look to the Sunni-led insurgency for a better deal? Sunni Arabs, a minority that had traditionally formed Iraq's ruling class, came out of their political isolation Saturday to vote in droves on a draft constitution that many of them see as flawed. Accounting for just 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million people, they mostly voted "no," but the charter seemed virtually certain of passage. [...]