INITIAL OFFICIAL results from Iraq’s milestone election released yesterday indicated that the race could be very tight. The State of Law coalition headed by Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is leading in two southern provinces while the Iraqiya bloc led by his main rival, former premier Iyad Allawi, is ahead in two northern provinces.
In Babil (Babylon) province Mr Maliki, a moderate religious Shia, secured 42 per cent of the vote and in Najaf province he took 47 per cent.
The Iraqi National Alliance, comprised of the fundamentalist Shia Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) and the movement loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took second place in both provinces.
Mr Allawi’s secular bloc came in third in these provinces but is leading in Diyala, a province with a mixed population, and largely Sunni Salahuddin, north of Baghdad.
While the results in the Shia south reflect only a third of the ballots cast in two out of 18 provinces, they show that Mr Maliki seems to have bested the hardline Shia religious bloc which is closely connected with Iran. Ahead of provincial elections last year, Mr Maliki attempted to distance himself from the SIIC and the Sadrists and to cultivate ties with Sunni tribal figures and nationalist groupings. Consequently his bloc did very well in the provincial elections, handily defeating the fundamentalist Shia parties.
However, in the run-up to the national parliamentary poll, Mr Maliki switched back to his original Shia religious orientation. He refused to pursue reconciliation with Sunnis who had been alienated as a result of their marginalisation by Shia parties who took power following the 2005 assembly poll.
He also backed the decision of the SIIC-led panel to exclude from the race more than 500 candidates on the grounds that they had ties to the ousted and outlawed Baath party.
Most of these candidates were secular figures belonging to coalitions competing with that of Mr Maliki. His support for the disqualification of these candidates and the arrest by Iraqi security forces of a number of tribal leaders antagonised many non-sectarian and Sunni voters and, according to Iraqi sources, boosted support for Mr Allawi’s list.
Some 6,200 candidates and 86 parties or blocs competed for 325 seats in the March 7th election, the second since the US occupied Iraq and toppled the Baathist regime in 2003. The election commission has promised full results by March 18th but may not be able to verify the outcome until many complaints and challenges are resolved.