After keen anticipation for an announcement from the Elections Committee on the outcome of the voting, there was a sense of letdown because the Commission simply announced that it has completed "the counting and sorting" of 66% of the votes across Iraq.
Unlike in two previous announcements, this recent announcement has failed to indicate how the votes were distributed among the various competing slates.
Despite the absence of final numbers regarding the weights of the various slates in the new parliament, the political parties have continued to talk to each other about forming a new governing coalition.
Today, the Commission is due to announce the results of 85% of the votes cast in the elections. The final results are not expected to be announced before the end of the month.[1]
There are two news items, largely negative, that deserve to be highlighted. The first one has to do with the failure of the Elections Commission to include the small slates in the distribution of the votes. So far, the Commission has focused on four major slates (See table, Iraq Votes – Part VI) while hardly mentioning any of the smaller competing slates. Mithal Alousi, a liberal politicians and head of the Umma Party, suspect that the delays in announcing the results of the elections and the confusion the delays have created "is consistent with the instructions of neighboring Iran that has sought by all means to cause the failure of the Iraqi elections." He added: "I see [such] delays as marginalizing the will of the Iraqi electorate and a victory for the will of Iran which has thrown all its weight to confuse and cause the failure of the elections."[2]
The second news item is not only negative but somewhat disturbing, if found to be true. According to a report carried by the Iraqi edition of the London-based Al-Zaman daily, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has dispatched to Tehran the director of his bureau, Tareq Al-Najm, to discuss the formation of a new government under Al-Maliki. Al-Najm's mission was secret, and he travelled to Iran in roundabout ways to disguise his mission and to prevent reaction from other parties, particularly Al-Iraqiya and many of its Sunni components, about discussing with Iran the formation of a new Iraqi government. If this is true, it would indicate that Al-Maliki would prefer a coalition government with the Iraqi National Alliance over a coalition with Ayad Allawi's Sunni-secular slate. The National Alliance has strong ties with Iran and al-Maliki needs Iran's support to prod it into a coalition under Al-Maliki's premiership.[3]
A Shi'a-based government could only perpetuate the sectarian nature of Iraqi politics and place efforts for national reconciliation on the back burner if not in the political basement.
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