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December 20, 2005
Sunnis leading in four provinces?
Bloomberg is reporting this now:
Partial results from Iraq's election of a permanent National Assembly show the ruling coalition led by Shiite Muslims is ahead in 10 of the 18 provinces, while the main Sunni Muslim and Kurdish blocs lead in four provinces each....The Shiite list, which includes Prime Minister Ibrahim al- Jaafari and Abdel Adel Mahdi, one of the country's two vice presidents, came out on top in provinces that have 140 seats.
The Shiite slate topped the count in Babil, Baghdad, Basrah, Karbala, Maysan, Muthana, Najaf, Qadisiyah, Thegar and Wasit provinces, polling more than three-quarters of the vote in all but the capital, where it took about 59 percent, according to the provisional count.
The Kurdish Alliance headed by President Jalal Talabani topped the vote in four northern provinces, polling more than 85 percent in Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, and about 52 percent in Tamim, which includes the city of Kirkuk.
The main Sunni bloc, Tawafoq Iraqi Front, took about 74 percent of the vote in al-Anbar, which has been the focus of insurgent activity. They also came out on top in Salah al-Din, Ninevah and Diyala, with more than a third of the votes in each.
If that "more than a third" figure is correct, it indicates that the less than a third segments are split between the Kurds, UIA, and Allawi. Which means the Sunnis could get as few as 30 or 40 seats.
This is less than Andrew Arato and others estimated from the early returns:
Accordingly, keeping in mind the possibility that the secular Allawi list can indeed take Sunni votes, the main Sunni coalition grouping, the Iraqi Accordance Front (List. No. 618) and the Mutlak list together could get as many as 20% of the seats (55 seats), but certainly 45-50 seats. Support for the latter would be an interesting indication of the strength of more radical Sunnis, but even if relatively high it would not effect the overall-all result . . .With respect to the election of last January, the Kurds will go down most dramatically. Their numbers are very easy to estimate on the bases of the referendum results: the Kurdistan Coalition List (730) will get all of the seats of three provinces, plus the majority of Kirkuk (Ta'mim) and big minority of Nineveh, altogether 20% of the seats which is a 7 % drop with respect to last January. The biggest party, the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance (No.555) may have dropped seats, too, because of the Sunni share: 40-45% seems plausible . . .
The New York Times has more details:
"We reject the results that have been announced by the electoral commission," Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leader of the Sunni coalition, said at a news conference."If the electoral commission doesn't adopt very strict measures against these violations," he added, "we are going to call for another election."
Saleh al-Mutlak, a prominent hard-line candidate heading his own party, insisted that international groups take the lead on investigating the election.
"We will not remain silent about what has happened, so we call on the international community to intervene," he said at a separate news conference. "We call on the president of the United States not to add another mistake to the mistakes already made in Iraq."
...Today, the electoral commission released early results for seven of Iraq's 18 provinces, after having announced results for the first 11 on Monday. Those seven included Anbar, Ninevah and Diyala, which have heavy Sunni Arab populations. The Iraqi Consensus Front came in first in all three provinces, with an especially strong showing in the virulently anti-American region of Anbar, where it captured 74 percent of the vote. Mr. Mutlak's party came in second there with 18 percent, and Mr. Allawi was a distant third at 3 percent.
Unlike in the other provinces, where the early results generally accounted for 90 percent or more of the ballots, the numbers from Anbar reflected only 52 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said. Anbar is the heartland of the insurgency, and transport and organization of election materials have moved much slower there than in other parts of Iraq.
Posted by Mike at December 20, 2005 05:55 PM
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