25 July 2005
As an Aug.15 deadline approaches for agreeing on a final draft of Iraq’s new constitution, Iraqi officials say the document should be ready for debate by a special committee next week, to be followed by the National Assembly.
However, agreement remains elusive on how ownership and management of Iraq’s vast oil resources should be formulated in the draft constitution, a member of the constitutional drafting committee told International Oil Daily Friday. Three options remain under discussion.
“A draft will be presented to the National Assembly in the first week of August. After it is discussed and final changes are made, 5 million copies will be distributed to households on Aug. 15,” the chairman of the constitutional drafting committee Sheikh Humam al-Hammoudi told a news conference in Baghdad last week.
The deadline for drafting the constitution, which would set Iraq on the transition path from occupation to independence, was set in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) drawn up under US oversight in 2004, before responsibility for governing Iraq in the transitional period was handed over by the Coalition Provisional Authority to an interim government.
However, divisions are still raging among the representatives of different ethnic and sectarian groups who are members of the subcommittees drafting the constitution’s different sections. As such, the document to be adopted by consensual agreement is expected to leave many contentious issues covered in very general terms, just as those who drafted the TAL were obliged to do previously.
Al-Hammoudi admitted that although there is agreement on fundamental issues, including basic principles, rights, duties and freedoms, the issue of federalism remains a sticking point that “has aroused concerns and fears” among some members.
The issue of ownership and management of Iraq’s oil wealth has been debated by the Regional Governments and Governorates subcommittee, one of six such groups set up to draft the constitution following January’s National Assembly elections.
The other subcommittees are known as Fundamental Principles; Rights, Freedoms and Duties; Federal State Institutions; Constitutional Guarantees; and Concluding Provisions.
Having failed to reach a consensus on one agreed formula for oil resources, members of the team have drawn up three different versions, which will be submitted later this week to the full 71-member drafting committee, a member of the team said.
One of the three versions states that Iraq’s natural resources should be managed by the federal government, which would be responsible for the distribution of oil revenues among the regions and governorates, according to specific percentages to be defined by law.
A second version stipulates that oil and gas resources would be managed by the federal government in coordination with the regional governments and governorates, with the central government again distributing revenues according to legal definitions.
A third version is the most controversial. Kurdish members of the subcommittee insisted that the draft constitution should state that Iraq’s natural resources are owned by the people of the regions, regional governments should be responsible for their management and that revenues should be distributed according to a set of percentages enshrined in the constitution. The proposed percentages are 5% for the producing governorates, 65% for regional governments and 30% for the federal government.
There is currently one defined regional government, in Kurdistan in northern Iraq, although its final borders have yet to be agreed. In southern Iraq, several governorates are teaming up — including the southern oil capital of Basrah and the governorates of Missan and Nasiriyah — to create a new regional government. According to the TAL, “any group of no more than three governorates outside the Kurdistan region, with the exception of Baghdad and Kirkuk, shall have the right to form regions from amongst themselves.”
“The constitutional committee will either adopt one of the three versions or it will come up with a new one acceptable to all,” the member of the drafting committee said.
Although the issue of coordination with regions and governorates in the second proposal could lead to conflicts over the scale and form of coordination, this appears the most likely idea to achieve a consensus, the member said. “It has been accepted by members of most of the other coalitions and parties and it’s the closest to the formulation adopted in the TAL, which is used as the basis for resolving any differences,” the member added.
In Chapter 3, Article 25 (E), the TAL states that the Iraqi transitional government or federal government has exclusive competence in “managing the natural resources of Iraq, which belongs to all the people of all the regions and governorates of Iraq, in consultation with the governments of the regions and the administrations of the governorates, and distributing the revenues resulting from their sale through the national budget in an equitable manner proportional to the distribution of population throughout the country.”
At the heart of the divisive issue is the Kurds’ ambition to control the northern oil capital Kirkuk. Aware of the challenges of reaching consensus on issues that have long plagued Iraqi politics, US and UK diplomats in Baghdad have been encouraging the drafting and eventually adoption of a document that provides a framework for resolving disputes, rather than any attempt to settle disputes before the constitution is ratified.
US officials faced a similar dilemma in supervising the TAL’s preparation last year. In that law, it was stated that the “permanent resolution of disputed territories, including Kirkuk, shall be deferred until … the permanent constitution has been ratified.”
The principle of distributing oil revenues is also problematic, as the two oil centers of Kirkuk and Basrah contain 15% of Iraq’s 25 million people — making the majority of the population dependent on revenues from areas that were starved of funds under the former Saddam Hussein regime, and which are now pushing for a share based on their contribution to the country’s oil wealth.
Before the final version of the draft constitution is adopted, Iraqi sources say a lot of horse-trading is expected during the debate within the constitutional committee. The involvement of Sunni Arabs — who joined the drafting committee in June, after shunning the January elections — could give the draft broader legitimacy, but their approval is not straightforward.
After a first meeting involving the Sunni representatives, the Shiite and Kurdish camps presented a gloomy picture of prospects, with some saying a deadlock and possible Sunni veto could not be ruled out. The 15 Sunni members joined the constitutional committee under a deal which required that the draft be adopted by all rather than a majority.
The Sunni participation was, however, compromised by the killing last week of two members of the constitutional drafting committee, which promoted the other members to suspend their participation.
According to the TAL, the draft permanent constitution should be presented to the Iraqi people for approval in a general referendum to be held no later than Oct. 15, 2005. It would go through if a majority of voters approved it and it were not rejected by two-thirds of voters in three or more governorates.
If the constitution were approved, elections for a permanent government should be held no later than Dec. 15, according to the schedule. The new government would then take office by Dec. 31, 2005.
By Ruba Husari, London
(Published in International Oil Daily Jul. 25, 2005)