Fear the constitution is intentionaly being made democratically weak
Iraq, Politics, 8/25/2005

The general conference for the Sunnis in Iraq announced that the draft constitution in its current shape is in unacceptable.

This was expressed while the Iraqi politicians are racing time to reach a consensus. This is an indication to the failure of intensive pressures and consultations to have the Sunnis accept items like the federalism and the sharing of the authority.

Chairman of the conference Adnan Salma al-Duleimi said that the constitution of Iraq should preserve the rights of all Iraqis, stressing that the Sunni will stand with all their power against the partitioning of Iraq.

In a press conference held in Baghdad, al-Duleimi said "we do not want to abandon anyone and for no one to abandon us," noting that the proposed federalism in the north or in the south is based on sectarian grounds. He called for the postponement of this issue and other pending issues in order to discuss them by the elected parliament and stressed that Iraq will continue to remain one country with Baghdad as its capital and that its resources to be for all Iraqis..

Duleimi also rejected the demands set by the American President George W. Bush for the Sunnis to accept the constitution and accused the Iraqi ministry of the interior of launching campaigns of vast breaking in for intimidation, in the lines of the Sunni Arabs to prevent them from registering in the referendum on the constitution and obstructing their participation in the political process.

He called for the UN to interfere to release the detainees before the referendum on the constitution in October, stressing that acts of detention are continuous and targeted hundreds. The Iraqi ministry of the interior denied these accusations.

Meantime, the Muslim Scholars Commission called on Washington to stop its pressure for a political settlement and to speedily draw a schedule for pulling out its forces. A statement by the commission said that the current constitutional draft is rejected, noting that it does not state that Islam is the main source for legislation and urged the parliamentarians of the parliament to reject it.

The representatives of the Arab Sunnis oppose the articles of the constitution pertinent to the federalism, the distribution of wealth on the ground of demographic density and eradication of the Baath party. They demand that the constitution state clearly that Iraq is an Arab Islamic state. They also rejected that the draft constitution does not define the authorities of the presidium council which is composed of the President of the Republic and the heads of the parliament and the Cabinet. If such an allegation is true, that there is such an important body whose authority has not been clearly defined, then this can be interpreted as an attempt to circumvent the democratic process, as has been typically the case in the Arab states' constitutions, and thus in effect makes the constitution mute. It may also reflect on the bad intentions of the drafters and power brokers for their desire to establish holes in the constituion that would start a process of eating away at the formation of a genuine democratic society.

Previous Stories:
  Religion injected into Iraqi draft constitution   (8/25/2005)
  Articles from the draft Iraqi constitution; simple majority to change Iraq's province structures   (8/25/2005)
  Talibani wants to meet Sunni demands for constitution that serves all Iraqis indiscriminately   (8/25/2005)
  Articles from the Iraqi draft constitution   (8/24/2005)
  Iraq wants diplomatic relations with the Arab states   (8/24/2005)
  US views on the Iraqi constitution draft process   (8/24/2005)
  Sticking points of the Iraqi constitution   (8/24/2005)

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