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Iraq's Kurds Ambivalent On Charter
Ghazi Mahmood, a retailer in the Kurdish capital of Irbil, said, "I don't care about the presidents."
(By Jackie Spinner -- The Washington Post)
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Some of the disconnection may come down to two competing perspectives on the referendum.
One of the reasons Kurdish leaders fought for recognition under the new constitution is that it would mean little change for a region that has been semi-autonomous since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Kurds do not want a new central government to interfere with their laws and way of life.
Hamza Hamid Muhamad, a spokesman for the Irbil government, said it was important that the new constitution allow Kurds to continue making their own decisions about local matters. "The laws and decisions in the central government should not be 100 percent applied on us unless the sovereignty of Iraq is at stake," he said.
Azad Musa, the deputy general director of Irbil International Airport, said he expected little change if the constitution were approved. "We don't think the central government will have a bad influence over our government," he said, "because we are now part of the dialogue."
If anything, Musa said, becoming a distinct part of Iraq should help the Kurdish region in negotiations for new business and economic development. "We will be an honest, legitimate government," he said.
But in the sitting room of their modest home, Nawzad Abdulrahman, 50, and his wife, Jawan Ibrahim, 36, said they saw no point in taking part in the vote Saturday. "We haven't even seen the articles of the constitution," Abdulrahman said. "People are not interested in the process."
Ibrahim said she was disappointed that nothing had changed after the January elections. The city still experiences electrical shortages, and the wage gap between the rich -- those presumed to be connected to the political parties -- and the poor has only widened.
"If independence is written in the constitution, it's very good," she said. "It would allow us to show us as a Kurdish nation. We want our rights, just like any nation in the world."
Special correspondent Sarok Abdulla Ahmed contributed to this report.
