Ballot boxes from all over the country are sorted and ballots counted, at the central offices of the Elections Commission in Baghdad. (Al-Zaman, Iraq, March 10, 2010)
Poor people dismantle election posters and banners, using wooden and metal frames for building and fabric for upholstery and mopping floors. (www.uragency.net/index.php?aa=news&id22=5554 March 9, 2010)
While the official election returns are being held secret by the Elections Commission pending the completion of the counting of the votes, there are enough leaks already to suggest that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki will emerge as a big winner, trailed by the two other major alliances –Ayad Allawi's Al-Iraqiya and Ammar Al-Hakim's Iraqi National Alliance. The Kurdish alliance will be ranked in fourth place but their appeal has always been limited to Kurdish population residing in the north of Iraq.
A survey of voters on election day in Baghdad by the Ein-il-Iraq [Eyes of Iraq] network, which monitored the integrity of the elections, showed the following results:[1]
State of Law Alliance 35%
Iraqiya (Allawi) 21%
Iraqi National Alliance 17%
Accord (Sunni) 9%
Iraqi Unity 6%
Mithal Alousi, Ahrar,
& Communists 3%
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan, drawing on what it termed as sources responsible for monitoring the elections, gives Al-Maliki 95 seats, Al-Iraqiya 68 seats, and the Iraqi National Coalition 50 seats.[2]
As party leaders await the final results, they are already engaged in forming potential coalitions. One such meeting was held yesterday, with the participation of Ayad Allawi, his running partner and current vice president Tareq Al-Hashemi, and Ammar Al-Hakim.
If there is one general observation that can be made at this time, it is that the Iraqi voter has penalized the religious parties. It is true that Al-Maliki also heads a religious party – Al-Da'wa – but he campaigned as a nationalist figure, disguising the identity of his historic party under the slogan of dawlat al-qanun [State of Law].
Regardless of the results that will be announced during this week, there is a common agreement that the next government, like the current one, will be a coalition government. If Al-Maliki has his way, he would prefer a coalition that does not necessarily include all the winning alliances.
On the other hand, Ammar Al-Hakim, whose alliance is likely to emerge second or third in the rankings, is already calling for a national coalition that would include everyone. He is obviously concerned he would be left out in a small coalition based on a simple majority.[3]
Of course, some of the political alliances are quite brittle and could easily splinter during the political bargaining that would precede the establishment of a new government.
As in all elections, there are big winners and big losers. Al-Malaki and Ayad Allawi would appear to be the big winners. The big losers are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the political party whose leader is Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. The almost final results in the three Kurdish provinces and Kirkuk indicate that the PUK has done poorly.
The other loser may be no other than Ahmad Chalabi, who stirred a lot of controversy on the eve of the elections by reinventing the Justice and Accountability Commission, which barred hundreds of candidates, including the two leading Sunni politicians, from participating in the elections because of alleged Ba'thist affiliation. If the Iraqi National Alliance under whose banner he ran for a seat in parliament emerges second or third in the post-election national ranking, any aspiration of becoming a prime minister will have to be squashed by the new political reality.
Endnotes:
[1] www.radiosawa.com/arabic_news.aspx?id=2193638 (March 9, 2010)
