Very cool news, and I am impressed by the preliminary results so far. –Matt
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Iraqi Elections Deliver A Victory for U.S. Goals
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 5, 2009
BAGHDAD, Feb. 5 — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki posted significant victories in Iraq’s provincial elections, winning Baghdad and eight provinces in Iraq’s Shiite south, according to official preliminary results released Thursday.
In voting for Maliki and his allies, Iraqis appeared to be supporting a strong central government and rewarding the prime minister for sending in government forces to fight Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad’s Sadr City enclave. Maliki’s State of Law coalition won 38 percent of the votes in Baghdad and 37 percent in Basra.
But with the exception of these two provinces, Maliki and his allies won by close margins in the other seven provinces and will need to build coalitions with other parties. At the same time, the slim margins could also allow other parties to come together in opposition to Maliki.
Iraqis also appeared to favor nationalist politicians who have portrayed themselves as non-sectarian leaders who oppose the division of Iraq. In Baghdad and in the south, Iraqis supported religious parties while in Sunni provinces, some secular parties posted strong results.
Some saw the support for Maliki as a sign that Iraqis were tired of the Shiite religious parties that have ruled the country since the 2005 elections, although Maliki’s Dawa Party has long promoted the establishment of a government guided by Islamic law. In backing his State of Law coalition, Maliki portrayed himself as a secular candidate and avoided the use of religious imagery.
“The people of Iraq are looking for security rather than looking for religious parties,” said Kurdish lawmaker Ala Talabani. “We are building a liberal country rather than an Islamic country.”
The elections in 14 of 18 provinces were held to select members of influential local councils, similar to U.S. state legislatures, that control finances and dispense jobs in provinces.
The most surprising victory occurred in predominantly Sunni Anbar province, where a party led by Saleh Mutlaq, a secular Sunni Arab nationalist, won narrowly over a party led by American-backed tribal leaders as well as established Sunni politicians of the religious Iraqi Islamic Party.
Mutlaq’s party won 17.6 percent of the votes while the Sunni tribal leaders, known as the Awakening, and the Islamic Party won 17.1 percent and 15.7 percent, respectively, according to Iraq’s electoral commission.
Mutlaq was among several Sunni Arab parties that posted victories, redistributing the balance of power, which Iraqi and U.S. officials hope will foster national reconciliation. Most Sunnis boycotted the 2005 elections, fearing threats from insurgents or because they were against the U.S. occupation.
The results released Thursday showed that al-Hadba-a, a Sunni Arab party, won decisively in Nineveh province in northern Iraq after campaigning on a promise to curb Kurdish expansion in a province that has primarily been under Kurdish control. In Diyala province, too, Sunni parties won the most votes in what had been a Shiite-controlled province, ushering in the most dramatic shift in sectarian power. In both Nineveh and Diyala, Kurdish groups came in second, setting the stage for greater Kurdish-Arab conflict.
In the south, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, was the biggest loser. Prior to the elections, Supreme Council officials predicted they would win outright the provinces of Najaf, Babil, Qadisiyah and Dhi Qar. That didn’t happen. They placed second to Maliki in the first three provinces, and third in Dhi Qar.
Iraqis appeared to have voted against the Supreme Council for several reasons, including its religious leanings, its links to neighboring Iran and its desire to create an autonomous Shiite region in southern Iraq.
Meanwhile, independent parties backed by the movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and its allies took second place in Baghdad, and posted strong showings in Iraq’s south that could boost Sadr’s waning political influence. As coalitions form, the Sadrists could emerge as potential kingmakers.
“We think we have achieved victory,” declared Muhammad Ayed, a Sadr-backed candidate.
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