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WASHINGTON, Dec.
25 (UPI) -- The full official results of Iraq's Dec.
15 parliamentary election will not be certified
until mid-January 2006, but it was clear long before
the actual voting that this would be an election
where most Iraqis would have to vote for the few
names they knew at the top of a ticket -- and make a
choice between key national, ethnic, and sectarian
parties -- without really knowing what a given party
ticket or leader really stood for in any detail.
Most Iraqis never saw the candidate lists in full
before they went to the polls. The number of
candidates also vastly exceeded the number of
offices. Not only were most of the major parties
mixes of very different voices and beliefs, but
there were 7.655 candidates on 996 candidate lists,
307 political entities (single candidates and
political parties), and 19 coalitions. In Baghdad,
for example, the ballot paper had 106 candidate
lists with 2,161 candidates for 59 seats in the
Council of Representatives. There were 212 political
contestants on the national ballot.
In spite of this diversity, it was clear that the
election had to focus around a few key parties:
-- United Iraqi Alliance or Unified Iraqi Coalition,
#555: Shiite. Led by Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim. This
mixed Hakim's Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution
in Iraq (SCIRI), Moqtada al-Sadr's group, Al Dawa,
and the group led by then Prime Minister Ibrahim
Jafari.
-- Iraqi Front for National Dialogue or Hewar
National Iraqi Front: Salih al-Mutlaq heads this
list and split the Iraqi Dialogue Council because he
opposed the constitution. The list includes five
such political groups.
-- Iraqi Accordance Front or Tawfoq Iraqi Front,
#618: Sunni. Led by Adnan al-Dulaymi and Tariq al-Hashimi.
Included three Sunni parties that boycotted the Jan.
30, 2005 election: National Dialogue Council, Iraq
Islamic Party (Hashimi), and Iraqi People's
Conference. Supported amending constitution,
weakening federalism, eliminating Shiite and Kurdish
dominated Iraq forces, liberalizing admission of
former Ba'athists to political process.
-- Iraqi National List or National Iraqi List, #731:
Shiite & Sunni. Led by Iyad Allawi (Prime Minister
is previous government.) Includes Independent
Democrats Grouping, National Democratic Party, and
Communist Party.
-- Kurdistan Coalition List or Kurdistan Gathering,
# 730: Kurdish. Led by Mas'ud Barzani and Jalal
Tababani (then President). Combined the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP). Smaller Kurdish, Turcoman, and Chaldean
Christian elements.
-- National Congress Coalition, #569: Largely Shiite
but some Sunnis. Led by Ahmad Chalabi (then a Deputy
Prime Minister. Includes Constitutional Monarchy
Movement. Mix of religious and secular voices.
The preliminary results of the election provided few
surprises. The results were highly polarized and in
ways that provided few signs of corruption or
falsifying the results in ways that would have a
major impact on the most probable result:
-- The Shiites dominated the south, and had a
majority in nine provinces, with a total of 81
seats, as well as in Baghdad, which has a total of
59 seats.
-- The Sunni had a majority in four provinces, which
had a total of 46 seats
-- The Kurds had a majority in four provinces which
had a total of 44 seats
-- The secular or nationalist parties did not have a
majority in a single province.
At the same time, the vote was mixed in many
governorates, (a caution against)the dangers of
assuming that Iraq can easily be divided into
federations, or separated along sectarian and ethnic
lines. There also was a significant secular or
nationalist voice in many Shiite provinces. At least
five governorates emerged as so mixed that any
division by sect or ethnicity might well trigger
ethnic cleansing or civil war, and they had a total
of 115 seats -- half of those elected by
governorate.
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