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KURDS
looked set to secure a significant presence in the
Iraqi parliament and a top job in government after
election results were announced later today,
crowning decades of struggle against successive
regimes in Baghdad.
The joint list formed by the Kurdistan Democratic
Party and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is
expected to be the second biggest group in the new
275-member national assembly behind the main Shiite
coalition.
Led by Massud Barzani, head of the KDP, and Jalal
Talabani, head of the PUK, the Kurds put aside years
of quarrels and internal rivalries to achieve
electoral success in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
Talabani announced last week he would be a candidate
for either prime minister or president in the new
government, while Barzani is to lead the Kurdish
regional government.
The Kurds are expected to play a powerbroker role in
the new parliament, serving as a bridge between
Shiite religious parties and secular Arabs.
But having achieved power within the country's new
democratic structure, many expect the Kurds to push
their own agenda - in spite of objections both from
within Iraq and from neighbouring countries with
their own Kurdish minorities.
Top of their list of demands is control of the
ethnically divided oil city of Kirkuk, which
Saddam's regime settled with tens of thousands of
Arabs in a bid to deny the Kurds the area's oil
wealth.
The two former rebel factions are determined to
consolidate their hard-won self-rule and extend
their autonomous region to all traditionally Kurdish
areas, including Kirkuk.
Kurdish leaders have said they are determined to
make the city the new seat of their regional
government, but parties representing its Turkmen and
Arab communities have cried foul, charging that
Kurds flooded into Kirkuk from other parts of the
country on election day to inflate the community's
vote.
"We are not seeking to wipe out the presence of our
Arab and Turkmen friends, we want to win back the
rights that were taken from the Kurds," PUK
candidate Rajkar Alihe said last week.
Some observers have expressed doubt the Kurds will
be in a mood to extend an olive branch to the former
Sunni Arab elite, but Talabani sounded a
conciliatory note towards Iraq's other ethnic and
religious groups, promising that the Kurds would not
abuse their new-found power.
Kurds are estimated to account for 15 to 20 per cent
of Iraq's estimated 27 million inhabitants, and some
fear a community already strongly represented in the
new Iraqi army could have disproportionate weight in
parliament.
While Shiite parties seem likely to win an overall
majority, government decisions must be approved by
two-thirds of MPs.
The final vote tally is due to be announced tonight
(midnight AEDT).
AFP
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