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IRAQ'S
main Shiite alliance remained on course yesterday
for a major victory in the country's election as new
results from the agonisingly slow count showed the
main Kurdish coalition now in second place.
With more than half of the votes counted, the United
Iraqi Alliance, backed by Shiite spiritual leader
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, should get an
absolute majority in the new 275-member national
assembly.
The two main Kurdish parties campaigned together for
the January 30 vote and the electoral commission
said their list took 1,075,534 votes from Dohuk and
Suleimaniyah - two of the three provinces in the
Kurdish autonomous region. This was almost 93 per
cent of the votes counted so far in the two
provinces.
The alliance of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and
the Kurdistan Democratic Party is virtually assured
of second place in the national election, behind the
Shiite coalition.
The main Shiite list now has 2,244,237 votes out of
about 4.36 million votes counted. About eight
million people were estimated to have voted.
http://www.news.com.au
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