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Kurds likely to be Iraq election
kingmakers after strong poll turnout
10.3.2010
By Martin Chulov in Baghdad |
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Kurdish alliance set to play prominent role in
coalition government despite Gorran group breaking
away
March
10, 2010
BAGHDAD,
—
A strong turnout from Iraq's Kurds in national
elections on Sunday has enhanced their status of
kingmakers in forming the central government, with
preliminary voting results expected within 24 hours.
The electoral commission said today that votes had
now all been counted, although the official results
will not be declared until the end of March.
The ballot appears to have narrowly favoured the
political list of the incumbent prime minister,
Nouri al-Maliki, but the rival bloc of former leader
Iyad Alawi is also predicted to have performed well.
Whoever wins will have to form a coalition in order
to build a government, with the Kurds expected to
play a prominent role.
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Kurds likely to be Iraq election kingmakers after
strong poll turnout. PUK photo |
However for the first time, a nascent Kurdish
opposition has threatened to splinter the Kurdish
alliance, whose truculent factions have invariably
united when dealing with post-Saddam Baghdad. The
allegiances of a breakaway Kurdish group,www.ekurd.netGorran,
are an unknown factor in the post-election
negotiations. Gorran is thought to have won about 15
seats in the new 325 seat parliament, damaging the
bloc of warlord turned president Jalal Talabani, who
wants a second term as Iraq's head of state.
Even if Maliki, or his bloc, ends up with the most
popular votes, his claim on the prime ministership
remains heavily contingent on his ability to appease
potential coalition partners and the residual wrath
of any enemies he has made during the past four
turbulent years. Maliki's supporters were privately
claiming today that he has won as many as 85 seats
in the new parliament, having swept the south and
performed solidly in Baghdad.
Alwai's backers were equally upbeat, with a senior
figure in Iraqiya, the secular alliance he took to
the election, also claiming the party had won 85
seats. In private, officials are hoping for as many
as 110.
A total of 38 people were killed in violence that
heralded Sunday's ballot, but so far there have been
no claims of vote-rigging or fraud. Election
observers have generally endorsed the conduct of the
election, which saw a 62% turnout nationwide, and up
to a 73% showing of registered voters at provinces
that had boycotted the previous poll.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
Guardian co.uk
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