Okay, so the referendum is successful if it gains a majority in “each governorate of the governorates wishing to join/combine into a region”. In other words, it was written with reference to a case of multiple governorates forming a region. Arguably, the case of single-governorate formation should have been mentioned separately. But to deduct from this that single-governorate formation should be governed by different rules is absurd. Article 6 is the sole article that defines the modalities for a successful referendum and it was clearly intended to cover all instances of region formation including single-governorate ones, not least since such single-governorate regions were among the most likely scenarios in 2006 when the law was drafted, for example in Basra. The idea – implicit in the comments from State of Law politicians – that there should somehow be a stricter threshold for a single governorate to become a federal region than for a combination of governorates (which after all would constitute an even more radical change) just defies common sense.
The comment by Rayyis which tries to differentiate between annexing governorates to existing regions and everything else is even more flawed: She seems to suggest that article 6 only applies to cases of multiple governorates wishing to join an existing region all in a single referendum! This scenario is not even discussed in article 2 of the law which merely envisages the addition of single governorates to existing regions. It should be fairly clear that the “region” mentioned in article 6 can also be the result of non-federated governorates joining together in an act of federalisation.
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