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A
special commission is at work to complete a draft of
the new constitution by the 15 August deadline. It
will then be put to a referendum in October, as
approval is a prerequisite for new general elections
in December.
The committee in charge of drafting the new Iraqi
constitution originally had 55 members, all drawn
from the National Assembly and nearly all Shiites -
the majority of the population - or Kurds. The
absence of Sunnis - who had only two members in the
committee - can be explained by the minority's
almost total boycott of the January elections, that
left it with only 17 representatives in Iraq's
275-member parliament.
To correct an imbalance which did not truly
represent the religious composition of the
population, Iraqi government officials with US
backing have decided to increase the number of Sunni
members within the constitution committee.
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