Even the Sunnis turned out

Iraqis streamed to the polls on an unusually peaceful Saturday, and preliminary results indicate that the country's new charter is likely to be approved, clearing the way for the formation of a permanent government.

While Sunnis came out in force to vote "no" in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces, where many claim the charter will lead to the breakup of Iraq, early returns indicated their vote wasn't enough to defeat the constitution.

US officials hailed the high turnout as a sign that more Iraqis are becoming engaged in the democratic process, and that the participation of more Sunnis means that ballots will increasingly replace bullets as the way to shape the country's future.

Better security in many Sunni towns and a general feeling among Sunnis that last January's parliamentary election boycott hurt their cause more than it helped made many of them want to make their voices heard this time.

But the risk remains that a constitution rejected by a broad Sunni opposition could deepen the sectarian and communal tensions that are feeding Iraq's war.

Across Iraq, many voters said they were motivated more by their differences than common interests. With cars banned on voting day, Iraqis walked to the polls in an exercise that was something of a fainter carbon copy of Iraq's first post-invasion election last January. In Shiite Arab and Kurdish areas, turnout appeared lower than in January, as voters expressed ambivalence over the charter they still hoped would pass.

How Iraq's constitution is seen depends on what group you belong to. Shiites, about 60 percent of the population, who were second-class citizens under Saddam Hussein, say it will lead to a united and strong Iraq. Sunnis, Hussein's privileged minority, say it leaves the country at the mercy of foreign powers like the US and Iran. The Kurds, whose people have always resisted rule from Baghdad and who were gassed by the former dictator, see it as a guarantee that outsiders won't be able to meddle in their affairs again.

With so many expectations, the constitution - a thin document that has left to future lawmakers many of the most difficult questions about the role of Islam and how national oil revenue will be shared - is sure to disappoint some.

While preliminary results show that two Sunni-dominated provinces rejected the constitution - the insurgent hotbed of Anbar, and Salaheddin province, where Mr. Hussein was born - the other two provinces with large Sunni populations, Diyala and Nineveh, look set to approve it. The constitution could have been stopped if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces rejected it, or if a simple majority in half of the provinces had voted "no."

In most of Iraq, polling centers hosted a steady stream of voters throughout the day. But the vote appeared split along sectarian lines. In Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad, Baquba, and the northern city of Mosul, a wide majority of Sunnis said they voted "no." In the Shiite neighborhoods of the same cities, the opposite was true.

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