Open Iraqi election thread

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


According to the NYT with 35% of the votes counted, mainly from Baghdad and the Shiite south the allience has 67% of the vote. It is beyond obvious that at least outside the Kurdish areas, given the lower voter turnout amongst Sunnis, that the List supported by Sistani will undoubtedly win, whih Alawi and Kurdish parties coming in second and third. By how much the Sistani supported list wins is the question left now, but its not really realisitc to think that somehow Sunnis and Kurds voted en mass for Alawi.

The NYT didnt tell us where in Baghdad the votes came from. If they were reporting US election returns, theyd be sure to mention that. I never doubted that UIA will come in first - see my posts above - but I would wait for final returns before declaring "victory" for anyone. Its the full returns, and not simply who comes in first, that will drive the coalition negotiations.

[GePap]

IN Baghdad the vote will be split in a large number of directions, but if you look at places like Sadr City, those regions would most likely be very solidly UIA.

I seriously doubt that a government without the UIA as part of it would be formed- this is a nascent democracy, and I doubt Iraqi voters would readilly accept that the winning party would be kept from power by smaller parties throught backroom deals.

[Ned]

Originally posted by bfg9000
So now that it is clear that the pro-Iran Shiites will win the election, what does the US do? This is clearly what they do not want to happen..

bfg9000, Sistani will first fix the Sunni triangle and then bring democracy to Iran. This guy has his head screwed on straight and obviously has great influence.

[lord of the mark]

IN Baghdad the vote will be split in a large number of directions, but if you look at places like Sadr City, those regions would most likely be very solidly UIA.

Yes, my point precisely. IF the returns are from Sadr City, than the reported returns are not surprising, and are not inconsistent with, say UIA getting roughly 40% of the overall vote. If, OTOH, they include large portions of West Baghdad, that would mean something else altogether.

I seriously doubt that a government without the UIA as part of it would be formed- this is a nascent democracy, and I doubt Iraqi voters would readilly accept that the winning party would be kept from power by smaller parties throught backroom deals.

Oh, i agree, UIA will be at the core of the new govt. But it makes a huge difference if they get say, 60% of the vote, and can pretty much run things on their own (they need (two thirds to choose a Pres) or if they get only , say, 40% and need to bring in one other major party AND additional support to govern. It will also impact how much influence the individual parties withing UIA have. remember its a joint list, but SCIRI, Dawa, INC, etc retain their identies as seperate parties - plus there are large numbers of independents on the UIA list - theres no guarantee that UIA will stay united through the negotiations, although Sistanis clout makes it likely.
(note in Israel,which also has nationwide PR, and where seperate parties sometimes run on lists together, list unity doesnt always continue past the election)

[Ramo]

According to the Times article, most of the Baghdad vote had come from the Shia Eastside. But, apparantly, the Sadrist list, and a more radical Shia Islamist list, gained some votes as well - 2.4% in the previous tally (37,400/1.6 million).

The Sunnis that are inclined to vote would probably go with Pachachi or Yawar's lists so I'd expect their tallies to increase somewhat with the rest of Baghdad counted.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ramo

According to the Times article, most of the Baghdad vote had come from the Shia Eastside.

my apologies to the NYT, evidently ive only seen portions of the article.

[Sava]

So who won?

Or is it still too early?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sava
So who won?

Or is it still too early?

Yup, its too early, we're still waiting for the returns from Florida and Ohio


AP has less than a quarter of the vote counted, mainly from Shiite areas , and the following results:

"On Thursday, the Shiite alliance had 70 percent and Allawi's list 18.4 percent of the 1.6 million votes counted from five mainly Shiite provinces.

Surprise third place went to the virtually unknown National Independent Cadres and Elites list which had 43,383 votes, or about 1.3 percent.

The communist People's Union had 30,063 votes and the Shiite Islamic Action 24,247 votes.

The list of interim President Ghazi al-Yawar came sixth with 23,349 votes. "


except AP got something wrong, cause 43,000 is over 2% of 1.6 million.

In any case WTF is National Independent Cadres and Elites???????

Commies not doing well, but I wonder if these are mainly rural votes outside Sadr City. Commies should do well in Basra city, forex.

Is Shiite Islamic Action the Sadrists? Not to strong a showing if this includes Sadr City.

Allawi is doing relatively well (if this excludes west Baghdad and Basra city) as lates polls suggested. But still not going to "win"

[lord of the mark]

another confusion = how are there a third of votes counted, if there are (apparently) 8 million total votes, and only 1.6 million are counted?

[Ramo]

Old article. See the Times.

[Ramo]

Actually, I think the AP ****ed up. Somehow, they spliced the new numbers in with the old.

[Ramo]

Is Shiite Islamic Action the Sadrists? Not to strong a showing if this includes Sadr City.

No, but it is Islamist (I think). The number three so far, National Independent Cadres and Elites is Sadrist.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ramo

Is Shiite Islamic Action the Sadrists? Not to strong a showing if this includes Sadr City.

No, but it is Islamist (I think). The number three so far, National Independent Cadres and Elites is Sadrist.

thats a damned weird name for a bunch of Shiite populists. Maybe it sounds different in Arabic.

[Ramo]

Yep, sure is. It goes by its acronym, NICE.

[lord of the mark]

Moqtada al Sadr

NYT:"The group, the National Independent Elites and Cadres, which has strong links to Moktada al-Sadr, the young cleric who twice last year led uprisings against American forces, had 1.5 percent of the votes counted so far. In Baghdad, where the Sadr City neighborhood is Mr. Sadr's main bastion, the group took nearly 2 percent."