Juan Cole: Fundamentalist Shiites Will Dominate New Iraqi Parliament

[leftchick]

It Looks like Iran won the Iraqi election. Go bush!

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/12/1791810.php


Al-Zaman is reporting early returns for Baghdad. The United Iraqi Alliance is reputed to have 58 percent there, with the Iraqi Concord Front (Sunni) getting 19 percent. Allawi brings up the rear with 14 percent, a disastrous performance given that his list seems to have done nothing anywhere else. The list will likely see its strength in parliament halved.

These results suggest a very strong position for the United Iraqi Alliance. There were <59>* seats at issue in Baghdad province, the largest single lot. If the UIA got 35-40 of them, that is a huge victory. Add those 35 to the likely 70 or so the UIA got in the solidly Shiite provinces, and you have 105. Another 8 in Babil and it is 113. A similar number in Diyala and you'd have 121. Then they may get some of the reserved seats when the reapportionment is done. They will be very close to having the 138 it needs to form a government. They can certainly pick up a few small allies and do it, perhaps without needing either the Sunnis or the Kurds (though they will need an initial coalition to gain the 2/3s needed to elect a president to appoint the prime minister).

In other words, the Shiite fundamentalist parties have won again. The secularists lost badly. Allawi and Chalabi are out of the game. The question is only whether the Shiites align with the Sunnis or the Kurds, or both. See Andrew Arato's guest editorial if you want the details.