Shiites, Kurds Lack Majority in Final Tally

The Shiite Muslim and Kurdish parties leading Iraq failed to win enough seats in last month’s parliamentary election to form a new government on their own, complete returns showed Friday, setting the stage for U.S.-backed talks aimed at bringing Sunni Arabs and other minority parties into a broader ruling coalition.

The tally confirmed the pre-eminence of a Shiite alliance led by two Iranian-backed religious parties, which won 128 of the parliament’s 275 seats. The next largest bloc, with 53 seats, went to Kurdish parties, which are again expected to join the Shiites as junior partners in running the country.

But their combined total of 181 is three seats shy of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify a new government and far fewer than the most optimistic Shiite forecasts right after the Dec. 15 election. Smaller parties seized on the outcome to demand a share of power and negotiations are expected to play out for weeks.

The stakes are high. U.S. officials aim to broker a significant Sunni role in the next government -- Iraq’s first with a full four-year term since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 -- in the hope of undermining a Sunni-led insurgency and allowing American troops to return home.

Iraqi soldiers and police Friday sealed off all roads between Baghdad and the restive provinces of Al Anbar, Salahuddin and Diyala, trying to prevent any insurgent attacks planned to coincide with the Iraqi electoral commission’s announcement of returns.

Little violence was reported across the country. Two civilians were killed in one of several bomb attacks on U.S. and Iraqi patrols, Reuters said.

The 10.9 million Iraqis who went to the polls on Dec. 15, a turnout of 70%, voted sharply along ethnic and sectarian lines. Friday’s returns underscored the growing appeal of parties based on sectarian and ethnic identity, and the sharp decline of more moderate secular groups favored by Washington.

In a statement anticipating the results, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called on the leading Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties to form an inclusive government. Khalilzad, who is expected to play a mediating role, said the parties “must come together to reinforce their commitment to democratic principles and national unity.”

Diplomats in touch with the contending parties said the election results favored such an approach. The Shiite and Kurdish blocs had more than two-thirds of the seats in the interim parliament elected a year ago, but fell below that mark this time.

“They are close but they don’t have it,” a Western diplomat in Baghdad said. “This should encourage movement toward a unity government.”

The minority Sunni Arabs, favored by Hussein’s regime, boycotted last January’s election, shutting themselves out of the interim government. But now Sunni parties will enter the negotiations, with 55 seats divided between two blocs.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, backed by influential Sunni clerics, won 44 of those seats; the rest went to the more militant Iraqi Front for National Dialogue. Sunnis had 17 seats in the outgoing parliament, none representing major parties.

The Sunnis’ gains came at the expense of Shiites, Kurds and secular parties.

The Iraqi National List, led by Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite politician who was the U.S.-appointed interim prime minister from June 2004 until April, won 25 seats, down 15 from the previous parliament. Two other secular parties, headed by Mishaan Jaburi and Mithal Alusi, won just four seats between them.

A party led by interim Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite once favored by the Bush administration to rule after Hussein, failed to win a seat.

The remaining seats went to ethnic and sectarian splinter groups -- five to the Islamic Union of Kurdistan, two to the Shiite-based Progressive Party, one each to parties representing the Turkmen and Christian minorities, and one to the Yazidi religious sect.

Broken down among Iraq’s 18 provinces, the returns portrayed a starkly polarized country.

Shiite religious parties got 41% of the nationwide vote and three-fourths of the vote in each of the nine largely Shiite provinces in the south; Kurdish parties won 21% of the overall vote and nearly 90% in Iraqi Kurdistan -- the largely autonomous region comprising three Kurdish provinces in the mountainous north.

The two Sunni tickets gained 19% of the total vote, roughly in line with the proportion of Sunni Arabs among Iraq’s population. They won 91% of the vote in western Al Anbar province, the insurgent heartland, and roughly half in Diyala, Salahuddin and Nineveh provinces, also home to large Sunni populations.

Secular parties won less than 10% of the vote nationally.

Baghdad’s mixed population voted 57% for the Shiite alliance and 23% for the Sunni tickets.

In Al Tamim province, 53% of voters chose the main Kurdish bloc, which favors incorporation of the ethnically mixed oil-rich region into Kurdistan. The vote was a measure of the Kurds’ success in resettling the provincial capital Kirkuk, reclaiming land that Hussein ousted their families from and gave to Arabs.

The returns were in line with incomplete tallies that had trickled out since the election. Sunni parties and Allawi’s group have claimed they were cheated by systematic vote fraud and called unsuccessfully for a re-run of the election. They will have four days to present final challenges; officials have 10 days to respond before certifying final results.

But the announcement Friday paved the way for earnest negotiations, after weeks of informal talks among party leaders.

In the discussions so far, Shiite leaders and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, have endorsed the need for a broad coalition government in order to stabilize the country. But they also face obstacles that could thwart that goal.

Several Shiite leaders said in interviews this week, for example, that their victorious coalition would not give up control of the Interior Ministry and the police. Some said they favored giving the Defense Ministry to a Kurd; it is now headed by a secular Sunni.

Also, the most influential Shiite politician, Abdelaziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said recently that he was unwilling to “change the essence” of the constitution, despite an earlier promise to Sunnis that the new government would be given four months to make substantial revisions.

Sunnis want constitutional changes that would strengthen the federal government, thus protecting their access to oil revenue.

In subsequent remarks, Hakim said he doubted that placing Sunnis “in this or that post” would have much of an effect on the insurgency -- a remark taken by Sunni leaders to mean that they might get only token representation in the government.

“If they cut a deal that leaves the Sunnis without any real authority, it is not going to help quiet the insurgency,” the Western diplomat said.

A member of Allawi’s secular bloc, Izzat Shahbandar, voiced similar apprehension. “What we’re concerned about is not the number of seats in parliament or posts in the government,” he said, “but rather how to get out of the political deadlock that is paralyzing the country.”

Abbas Bayati, a Shiite leader involved in the informal talks, said two secular politicians and a Shiite elected to the new parliament from small parties might be willing to align with the main Shiite bloc. That would give the Shiites just enough votes with the Kurds to form a government without the Sunnis and other rival groups.

If that happens, predicted Saleh Mutlak, who leads the smaller of the two Sunni groups, “the Americans will intervene to create a balance, but what kind of balance, with what percentages, I don’t know.”

“The real question is what pressures the United States will bring to bear in order to include the Sunnis,” said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group.

Some politicians said they were concerned that the wrangling might last into March, creating a power vacuum that would make it more difficult to fight the insurgency. Before the Shiite alliance can negotiate the makeup of a Cabinet with other parties, it must decide which of its own leaders to nominate as prime minister -- a decision that is said to be at least two weeks away.

The interim prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari, and Adel Abdul Mehdi, the interim vice president, are the top candidates for the post.

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Iraq elections

Shiite and Kurdish parties fell three seats short of the two-thirds majority required to control parliament. Here’s a look at the final tally of the December election and how they compare to those in January:

Dec. 15, 2005

United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite): 128

Kurdish Alliance: 53

Iraq National List (secular): 25

Others: 14

Sunni parties: 55

Iraqi Accordance Front: 44

Iraqi Front for National Dialogue: 11

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Jan. 30, 2005

United Iraqi Alliance: 140

Kurdish Alliance: 75

Iraq National List: 40

Others: 3

Sunni groups: 17

Sources: Times reporting, Associated Press

Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin, Chris Kraul, Caesar Ahmed, Saif Rasheed and Raheem Salman and special correspondents Asmaa Waguih and Shamil Aziz contributed to this report.