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BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 13 - The razor-thin margin
apparently captured by the Shiite alliance here in
election results announced Sunday seems almost
certain to enshrine a weak government that will be
unable to push through sweeping changes, like
granting Islam a central role in the new Iraqi
state.
The verdict handed down by Iraqi voters in the Jan.
30 election appeared to be a divided one, with the
Shiite political alliance, backed by the clerical
leadership in Najaf, opposed in nearly equal measure
by an array of mostly secular minority parties.
According to Iraqi leaders here, the fractured
mandate almost certainly heralds a long round of
negotiating, in which the Shiite alliance will have
to strike deals with parties run by the Kurds and
others, most of which are secular and broadly
opposed to an enhanced role for Islam or an
overbearing Shiite government.
The main responsibility of the Iraqi government over
the next 10 months will be the drafting of a
permanent constitution, which must pass a vote of
the assembly and then be put to a vote of the people
later this year. The role of Islam is widely
expected to be one of the most contentious issues.
The results of the balloting appeared to leave
Kurdish leaders, whose party captured more than a
quarter of the assembly seats, in a particularly
strong position to shape the next government. The
Kurds are America's closest allies in Iraq, and most
of their leaders are of a strong secular bent.
Among the demands that the Kurds and other groups
will put to Shiite leaders as the price for their
cooperation will be an insistence on a more secular
state and concessions on Kirkuk, the ethnically
divided city that Kurdish leaders want to integrate
into their regional government. Kurdish leaders also
say they will insist that the Iraqi president be a
Kurd.
The prospect of a divided national assembly, split
between religious and secular parties, also appeared
to signal a continuing role for the American
government, which already maintains 150,000 troops
here, to help broker disputes.
As the final vote totals were being announced
Sunday, Shiite leaders appeared to be scaling back
their expectations, and preparing to reach out to
parties in the opposition to help them form a new
government.
"We have to compromise," said Adnan Ali, a senior
leader in the Dawa party, one of the largest in the
Shiite coalition, called the United Iraqi Alliance.
"Even though we have a majority, we will need other
groups to form a government."
The vote tally, which appeared to leave the Shiite
alliance with about 140 of the national assembly's
275 seats, fell short of what Shiite leaders had
been expecting, and seemed to blunt some of the
triumphant talk that could already be heard in some
corners. The final results seemed to ease fears
among Iraq's Sunni, Kurd and Christian minorities
that the leadership of the Shiite majority might
feel free to ignore minority concerns, and possibly
fall under the sway of powerful clerics, some of
whom advocate the establishment of a strict Islamic
state.
As a result, some Iraqi leaders predicted Sunday
that the Shiite alliance would try to form a
"national unity government," containing Kurdish and
Sunni leaders, as well as secular Shiites, possibly
including the current prime minister, Ayad Allawi.
Such a leadership would all but ensure that no
decisions would be taken without a broad national
consensus.
One senior Iraqi official, a non-Shiite who spoke on
the condition of anonymity, said the slim majority
won by the Shiite alliance signaled even greater
obstacles for the Shiite parties in the future. If
the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the election,
decide to take part in the future, they would almost
certainly dilute the Shiite alliance's already thin
margin.
"This is the height of the Shiite vote," the Iraqi
official said. "The next election assumes Sunni
participation, and you will see an entirely
different dynamic then."
http://www.nytimes.com
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