Iraq's National Assembly voted yesterday to reverse last-minute changes it had made to rules for next week's referendum on a new constitution. The UN had criticized the changes as unfair to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, which had threatened to boycott the vote.

After a brief debate, the Assembly voted 119 to 28 to restore the original voting rules for the referendum, which will take place on October 15. Only about half of the 275-member legislative body turned up for the vote.

"The government is completely keen to make the constitutional process legitimate and of high credibility and we are concerned about the success of this process rather than the results of the referendum," government spokesman Laith Kubba said after the vote.

A UN official confirmed the vote and praised parliament for reversing the decision, saying that he believed Sunni Arabs will now take part in the referendum. "Even if they (the Sunnis) vote no, what the Assembly did today is more democratic than what it did several days ago," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because official comment should come from UN headquarters in New York.

Washington hopes a majority "yes" vote in the referendum will unite Iraq's disparate factions and erode support for the country's bloody insurgency, paving the way to eventually begin withdrawing foreign troops.

But it wants Sunni Arabs to participate even though they are campaigning to defeat the charter. A Sunni boycott would have deeply undermined the vote and wreck efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process.

Many Sunnis oppose the charter and want it rewritten, believing it would divide Iraq and leave Shi'ites in the south and Kurds in the north with virtual autonomy and control over Iraq's oil wealth, while isolating Sunnis with little power or revenue in central and western areas.

The original rules, now restored, mean that Sunnis can veto the constitution by getting a two-thirds "no" vote in three provinces, even if the charter wins majority approval nationwide. Sunnis have a sufficient majority in four of Iraq's 18 provinces.

The text approved by parliament yesterday confirmed that the word "voters" throughout the election rules in the interim constitution has a single meaning: those who cast votes.

"The word 'voters' in paragraph (c), article 61 of the Transitional Administrative law, means registered voters who actually cast their votes in the referendum," reads the text, according to deputy speaker Hussain al-Shahraistani.

On Sunday, Iraq's Shi'ite-and Kurdish-controlled parliament had sought to close the loophole enabling Sunnis to reject the constitution by interpreting the word "voters" two different ways in that article. It decided that a simple majority of those who cast votes means the constitution's victory but that two-thirds of registered voters must cast "no" ballots in three provinces to defeat it.

That interpretation had raised the bar to a level almost impossible to meet. In a province of 1 million registered voters, for example, 660,000 would have to vote "no," even if that many didn't even come to the polls.

Sunnis were infuriated, accusing the Shi'ite-led government of fixing the rules to guarantee a victory. The UN said the change was a violation of international standards.

In behind-the-scenes negotiations on Tuesday, UN and US officials pressed Iraqi legislators and government officials to reverse that change.

Now officials were racing to prepare for the crucial vote only 10 days away.

(China Daily October 6, 2005)