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Iraq counts votes after election marred by
violence
8.3.2010
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March
8, 2010
BAGHDAD, —
Iraqi authorities counted votes on Monday, a day
after a parliamentary election that Islamist
militants tried to disrupt with attacks that killed
38 people.
Preliminary results were not expected for another
day or two in a poll that Iraqis sickened by years
of violence hope will help bring stability and
better governance as U.S. troops leave.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law list
claimed it was on course for victory in Baghdad and
Iraq's Shi'ite south, a claim that could not be
verified but which, at least in the south, appeared
to be backed by informal, early vote tallies.
"The State of Law Coalition list is leading among
other lists in Baghdad and other southern
provinces," said Ali al-Dabbagh, government
spokesman and State of Law candidate.
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Iraq counts votes |
Maliki faces a stiff
challenge from his former Shi'ite Islamist allies
grouped in the Iraqi National Alliance (INA).
The powerful Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI),
which is part of that bloc, said the vote appeared
evenly split between Maliki and INA in early
counting.
Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular,
cross-sectarian list, which had won the backing of
many minority Sunnis who view Maliki's Shi'ite-led
government with suspicion, was running third, ISCI
said on its website.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, a new party was challenging
President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), one of two groups that have
dominated Kurdish politics for decades.
A robust showing by the reformist Goran list could
weaken the hand of the PUK and Massoud Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party in any coalition talks in
Baghdad. The relative cohesion of the Kurds has
allowed them to play kingmaker in the past.
There was no overall turnout figure, but election
officials said it was 61 percent in the sprawling
Sunni province of Anbar and 70 percent in Kirkuk,www.ekurd.neta
northern oil province at the heart of a bitter
territorial dispute between Arabs and Kurds.
The scale of the Sunni vote will indicate whether
Sunnis feel they have a real stake in Iraq's nascent
democracy after the shock of the U.S.-led 2003
invasion, when they lost their relatively privileged
position under Saddam Hussein.
Many Sunnis felt targeted when a Shi'ite-led panel
vetoed around 500 candidates, including a top Sunni
politician, before the vote, for alleged links to
Saddam's outlawed Baath party.
Sunnis felt under-represented after the 2005
election for a full-term parliament, which sealed
the grip on power of majority Shi'ites and minority
Kurds oppressed by Saddam.
POLITICAL FRAGMENTATION
Factions representing those ethnic and sectarian
communities have since fragmented. Some have forged
alliances that cross communal lines, although new
combinations may well emerge in arduous
post-election talks to form a new coalition
government.
The negotiations, inevitable given that no one party
is likely to command a majority in the 325-seat
assembly, will test Iraq's fragile democracy as the
United States halves its troop presence to 50,000
and ends combat operations by August 31.
U.S. President Barack Obama aims to bring all U.S.
forces home from Iraq by end-2011, a timetable that
U.S. officials say could only be jeopardized by a
dire security deterioration.
Iraqi factions took five months to cobble together a
coalition government last time. It may be harder
now.
"In a country like Iraq, winning an election does
not confer legitimacy. That only comes with
effective governance," said David Mack, a scholar at
the Middle East Institute.
"Assuming Maliki has a narrow plurality, he will
find it very hard to form a government. His decision
to play the de-Baathification card in the run up to
the election makes it nearly impossible to form a
cross-sectarian coalition of national unity," he
said.
"On the other hand, if he forms a governing
coalition with the Shi'ite religious parties ... the
prospects for instability will increase," said Mack,
a former U.S. ambassador.
Some politicians, notably Allawi, have already
criticized the conduct of the election, although
foreign observers said privately that technically it
appeared to have gone well.
Allawi complained about the way the Independent High
Electoral Commission had handled the voting. "As the
votes are counted, the great number of Iraqis who
risked their safety to take part in these elections
are watching," he said.
Faraj al-Haidari, head of the electoral commission,
reacted sharply. "We call on the political entities
and candidates to accept the results whatever they
are, and not to cast doubts on the results," he told
a news conference late on Sunday.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
Reuters
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