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December 19, 2005
Ahmed who?
Well, it looks like Chalabi could get shut out. Lacking enough support in any of the provinces to win a single seat would indeed prevent him from becoming prime minister and hurt his chances for Oil Minister or Finance Minister, as well. Which is to say nothing of his conviction for bank fraud in Jordan, or the fact that most Iraqis hate his guts. I should probably hold off on the celebration until the official results are released, but I would bet Mahdi will be PM.
Here are preliminary returns from Al Jazeera:
In Baghdad province, results from 89% of the ballot boxes showed the Shia United Iraqi Alliance ahead with 58% of the vote in Iraq's biggest electoral district.The electoral commission said the alliance received 1,403,901 votes, followed by the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front with 451,782 votes, and the Iraqi National List ticket of Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, with 327,174 votes....
Results from southern Basra province, also mixed but predominantly Shia, saw the clergy-backed alliance significantly ahead, winning 612,206 votes with 98% of ballot boxes counted. Allawi's group was in second place with 87,134 votes, while the Iraqi Accordance Front trailed with 36,997.
Kurdish parties were overwhelmingly ahead in their three northern provinces.
In Dahuk, results from 93% of ballot boxes showed the Kurdistan Coalition List, an alliance consisting of the two main Kurdish parties, received 344,717 votes representing 89% of votes counted.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union followed with 28,401 ballots, while the Rafidian party, which represents Assyrian Christians, trailed with 4696.
Allawi's group received 2327 votes.
In Arbil, results from 76% of ballot boxes showed the Kurdish alliance winning 570,098 votes, or 95%. The Kurdistan Islamic Union won 19,612, or 3.24%, while Allawi's ticket had 2420.In Sulaimaniya, results from 98% of ballot boxes showed the Kurdish alliance ahead with 671,814 votes, followed by the Kurdistan Islamic Union with 83,208 - and trailed by Allawi's National List with 1806.
By comparison, the United Iraqi Alliance received less than 8 percent in Saddam Hussein's home province of Salahuddin and Allawi garnered about 10 percent. Nearly all the rest went to Sunni Arab groups.Although no detailed overall figures were provided and results were partial, the turnout seemed to be large. Officials have estimated that 11 million people went to the polls, or up to 70 percent of the country's 15 million registered voters....
A senior official in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the main groups in the United Iraqi Alliance, said the alliance was expecting to get about 130 seats.
"The United Iraqi Alliance strongly believes that all the various components of the Iraqi people should participate in the decision making, including forming the upcoming government. This means that the new Iraqi government will be a national unity government," Redha Jawad Taqi said.
Posted by Mike at December 19, 2005 05:53 PM
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