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Iraqi preliminary vote results delayed
10.3.2010
By Michael Jansen in Sulaimaniyah
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March
10, 2010
SULAIMANIYAH,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Iraq's election
commission yesterday announced a 24-hour
postponement of the release of preliminary results
of Sunday’s parliamentary election.
The commission said the delay was due to the need to
combine results from voting in the provinces with
tallies from voters living in Iraq outside their
home communities and refugees living abroad in 16
countries where they were given the opportunity to
vote.
Sarko Osman, a candidate for Gorran, or the “change”
movement, in the northern Kurdish province of
Sulaimaniyah, confirmed that the process of counting
all the votes should be over today.
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However, he said
Gorran’s observers at polling stations and counting
centres had provided some results in the crucial
Kurdish regional race.
“In Sulaimaniyah Gorran’s share is considerably
lower than my expectations,” he said.
Gorran, strong in urban areas, says the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and its ally, the Kurdish
Democratic Party (KDP), are ahead in the
countryside, where tribal ties to the traditional
PUK and KDP leaders are strong.
The most dramatic development is the likelihood that
the PUK will emerge with six seats and the KDP with
two out of 12 in the race in Kirkuk, where Kurds
seek to gain power in spite of vehement opposition
from local ethnic Arab and Turkoman communities
which are already disputing the result.
While a strong showing in Kirkuk could boost the
Kurds’ bargaining power in Baghdad during
negotiations over the formation of the government,
the PUK and KDP will be under pressure to deliver
the popular Kurdish demand for a referendum in the
disputed Kirkuk (Tamim) province to decide whether
it should be incorporated into the Kurdish region.
“After the PUK lost seats to Gorran in last year’s
Kurdish parliamentary election, the PUK focused on
Kirkuk,” Mr Osman said.
“[Iraqi president and PUK leader Jalal] Talabani
made many visits to Kirkuk because he knew he would
lose in Sulaimaniyah [to Gorran]. He knew also that
he could not win any seat in Irbil [the KDP
stronghold].”
Mr Osman added that, due to the PUK’s loss of
control of its traditional Sulaimaniyah base, “Mr
Talabani’s position has been weakened in Baghdad”.
This is certain to affect his chances of being
re-elected president.
On election day Mr Talabani, who has served since
2005, said he would stand again for the post if
asked. But yesterday outgoing vice-president Tariq
al-Hashimi of the secular Iraqiya list called for
the elevation of an Arab to the presidency. The
Iraqiya list,www.ekurd.netheaded
by former premier Iyad Allawi, appears to have
garnered the second-largest number of seats in the
325-member national assembly.
This election “has changed the political map of
Iraq”, said Mr Osman. “I think everything is going
to change. All Iraqis are waiting to see what will
happen.”
To meet the challenges ahead, he said the Kurds, a
minority of perhaps 17 per cent, had to get together
and “make a plan”. He added that the next four years
would be different from the last four years as Iraq
was “much stronger” as a country.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
The Irish Times | irishtimes com
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