Secular Allawi bloc takes most seats in Iraqi election Secular Allawi bloc takes most seats in Iraqi election Sat, Mar 27, 2010, 00:00 IRAQI VOTERS have inflicted a dramatic upset on the Shia religious parties which have ruled Iraq since the US occupation. The country’s election commission announced yesterday that the secular Iraqiya bloc headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi won the prized plurality of seats contested in Iraq’s March 7th parliamentary election. This result deprives incumbent Nuri al-Maliki’s sectarian State of Law bloc of the first chance to form the next government and may lead to his exclusion from the race for the premiership. Iraqiya secured 91 seats in the 325-member national assembly, the State of Law 89. The Shia fundamentalist slate, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), won 70 seats and the traditional clan-oriented Kurdish parties 43 seats. “We will work with the winners and losers to form a government,” a beaming Mr Allawi said on hearing the results. “We will not exclude anyone.

Our coalition is open to all.” Mr Maliki reacted to the commission’s release of figures by saying that the result is “not final” and proclaiming that his bloc will continue its efforts to form a cabinet. However, Ad Melkert, the head of the UN mission to Iraq, said the organisation believed the election had been “credible” and congratulated the commission on the poll’s conduct. Last week, when it emerged that Mr Allawi’s slate was ahead, Mr Maliki called foul and fraud and demanded that the election commission conduct a manual recount of all 12 million votes. He clearly fears that since his bloc failed to secure the most votes, potential Shia and Kurd coalition partners – who are not keen on him in any case – could choose an- other candidate, even one from the third place INA. Mr Allawi has already held consultations with potential partners. But he is likely to find more difficult than Mr Maliki would have the task of rounding up 163 mandates. If Mr Allawi fails, the president will call on the leader of another bloc to build a cabinet. ADVERTISEMENT This election has transformed Iraq’s political landscape whoever forms the next government.

The secular/Sunni camp, which boycotted the 2005 contest, organised and turned out in force to cast ballots. Iraqiya, its flagship, won five northern provinces and more than one-third of the seats in Baghdad. Iraqiya is now a serious actor on the Iraqi political scene although its emergence has sharpened the polarisation between secularists and sectarians. Religious parties have begun to lose their ascendancy. The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, which had 44 seats in the outgoing parliament, has been reduced to six. Shia sectarian parties, united under the auspices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in 2005, secured a comfortable plurality in 2005. But last year they split into two feuding factions, weakening the fundamentalist grip on power. Furthermore, Mr Maliki, distanced himself from political Shiaism, projected himself as a nationalist, and formed a moderate Shia electoral alliance, studded with Sunni tribal leaders. While his Dawa party secured only 20 per cent of the Shia vote in 2005, this time round his bloc won two-thirds of the votes garnered by Shia parties and led in seven provinces.

Mr Maliki’s transformation was a double defeat for the Shia fundamentalists, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) and the radical movement of Muqtada al-Sadr. Their bloc won in only three provinces. Sadr’s candidates took the majority of seats won by the bloc at the expense of the SIIC, making it unlikely that this entity will survive since the SIIC and the Sadrists have very different agendas. While Iran is certain to put pressure on the Shias to make common cause, they no longer constitute a cohesive force. The Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which rule the three Kurdish provinces, lost eight seats to Goran, the change movement which appeared in 2009 and seeks accommodation with Baghdad over issues of supreme importance to the Kurds. This could reduce friction between Kurds and Arabs, particularly in the north. Shortly before the election result was announced, 42 Iraqis were killed and more than 60 wounded in an attack in Dyala province north of the capital.

Iraq risks sectarian war, warns election winner Iyad Allawi | World news | The Guardian Iraq Iraq risks sectarian war, warns election winner Iyad Allawi Former PM Iyad Allawi says feuding politicians trying to sideline his supporters, after scoring surprise win in general election Iyad Allawi said Iraq's political groups had abandoned efforts to build a united government. Photograph: Mohammed Jalil/EPA Iraq Iraq risks sectarian war, warns election winner Iyad Allawi Former PM Iyad Allawi says feuding politicians trying to sideline his supporters, after scoring surprise win in general election Monday 10 May 2010 15.02 EDT First published on Monday 10 May 2010 15.02 EDT Close This article is 6 years old Iraq's former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who scored a surprise win in the recent general election, warned today that the country risks descending into a new sectarian war, with feuding politicians attempting to sideline his supporters and the international community standing idly by.

In an interview with the Guardian Allawi said that since the bitterly contested 7 March election, in which his Iraqiya party list won 91 seats, political groups had abandoned efforts to build a united government and were regressing into sectarianism, encouraged by Iran. Allawi, who led the country for nine turbulent months from early 2004 as a US-appointed transitional prime minister, also warned that unless America and its allies safeguarded Iraq's nascent democracy, renewed conflict could spread around the region. "This conflict will not remain within the borders of Iraq," he said. "It will spill over and it has the potential to reach the world at large, not just neighbouring countries. Now Iraq is at centre stage in the region. But it is boiling with problems, it is stagnant and it can go either way. "I feel that we are not done and that the international community has failed this country." Allawi's warning came on the most deadly day of violence in Iraq this year, with more than 99 people killed and at least 300 wounded in a spate of shootings and explosions. Today's attacks stood out from other spikes in bloodshed over the past year.

They were marked by a large number of precise bombings and assassinations, in all corners of the country. At least 12 security officers were killed at Baghdad checkpoints by militants wearing street cleaning uniforms and armed with pistols fitted with silencers. The worst of the attacks, though, took place in the Shia heartland of Hilla in central Iraq, where a suicide bomber detonated a device amid a crowd that had gathered at the scene of two car bombings outside a textile factory. At least 43 people were confirmed dead. Allawi said an upswing in violence was nearly certain unless political leaders could convince an increasingly sceptical public that pledges of unity they made during the election were not hollow attempts to cling on to power. He railed against a preliminary move by incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's bloc and a theocratic Shia Islamic list to create a coalition that excludes his list and leaves them within four seats of being able to form another Shia majority government – despite campaigning heavily on reconciliation among sects. "They are going back to their original sectarian ways," he said in his Baghdad office. "They were elected on a ticket of national unity, but this is not the way they are behaving. "We don't have a process in Iraq.

There is no rule of law, we have been politicising justice, there have been arrests of main candidates and waves of arrests against Iraqiya. The pressure on the judiciary not to take any action is strong. All this and other issues do indicate that we have a long way to go and we are not getting there. It is in worse shape than before." Since the election, which was ratified by the UN as free of systemic fraud, Maliki – who won 89 seats – has successfully campaigned for a recount of all votes cast in Baghdad, which is widely considered to be the most important of the 18 provinces. At least six candidates from Allawi's winning Iraqiya list have been targeted by an anti de-Ba'athification body that evolved from the US-led coalition provisional authority's days in 2003. If Iraqiya loses two members from the new parliament, it would lose its claim on a mandate. Iraqiya has described the attempted purge as a blatant political play, backed by Iranian interests and disguised as a legitimate process. "We have fought tyranny for 30 years," Allawi said in reference to what he claims have been clear attempts to alter the outcome of the vote.

"We were looking towards the rule of law and for a real democracy to prevail in this country. But as Iraq stands now, we don't have that, or an inclusive electoral process. We don't have reconciliation and we don't have the right people to do the job." He said Iran and Turkey had clear interests in meddling in the political process in Iraq, which is at a critical juncture with the dwindling US military awaiting an order to pull out en masse and with a range of neighbouring states poised to seize on any enduring political vacuum. "There are some neighbouring states – Iran in particular – who are meddling. Interference from them and others has intensified in the past three months and needs to stop. They have an obligation to let things take their course here and to stop interfering." He said the US withdrawal was the right thing to do, but would cause generations of upheaval if it took place before the still restive society had settled down. "I want the international community to realise they have an obligation to Iraq," Allawi said. "I want to talk to Britain, the United States and to Europe and ask them to respect the [UN] report" which ratified Iraq's general election as free, fair and free of systemic fraud.

"The Americans are interested in drawing down and I think that is the right thing to do. But to remove Iraq completely from American policy would be very wrong." Under a security agreement signed between Baghdad and Washington early last year, which came into effect last June, the remaining US forces can no longer act unilaterally and are largely confined to their bases. However, Allawi said the agreement did not render them impotent. "They still have obligations here to safeguard the democratic process under the agreement, a UN resolution and Chapter 7" of the UN security council charter that continues to prescribe international powers to maintain peace, he said. Iraq election: Allawi leads Maliki for first time | Euronews Iraq election: Allawi leads Maliki for first time Now Reading: Iraq election: Allawi leads Maliki for first time Today's Top Stories last updated: 17/03/2010 Euronews Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has edged past the country’s current Prime Minister Nuri-al-Maliki for the first time as the election count enters its final stages. The new initial results reverse the lead Maliki had taken in earlier counts.

Allawi’s narrow lead in the national vote, over Maliki’s mainly Shiite State of Law bloc – which is ahead in seven of 28 provinces – underlines Iraq’s polarisation after years of sectarian war. Allawi – a secular Shiite, whose cross sectarian, Iraqiya list is now ahead in five provinces – has galvanised support among minority Sunnis eager to reclaim the influence they lost when Saddam Hussein’s long rule ended in 2003. With about 80 per cent of an estimated 12 million votes counted, only about 9,000 votes separate Maliki’s and Allawi’s coalitions. Some analysts – basing their findings on projected voting patterns – say the two leading contenders appear to be neck and neck approaching the finish. Share this article: | Politics , US & Canada , Iraq , United States After months of political deadlock, Nuri al-Maliki retained his post as prime minister [EPA] Iraq held elections on March 7, aimed at electing a new parliament and a prime minister. The polls were seen to be a critical stage in the country's political development since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The country previously held national assembly elections in January 2005, and parliamentary elections in December of the same year. Two significant differences separate Iraq's parliamentary election from the first poll held in 2005. US combat troops have left, although their still is a large US military presence there. The other is that a large number Iraqi Sunnis who did not vote last time, cast their ballots. A majority of Sunni politicians (and voters) boycotted the election process in 2005, in what they later admitted to have been a miscalculation which paved the way for Shia dominance of the Iraqi government and parliament. Despite increased violence in the lead-up to the elections, Iraqis went to the polls in large numbers, with voter turnout standing at 62 per cent, according to officials. Nuri al-Maliki , the prime minister, gained 91 seats, and his main rival Iyad Allawi gained 89 seats. The election results, however, added to rather than reduced the country's political turmoil and ended up reinforcing rather than easing the country's sectarian tensions.

Political deadlock Eight months of political deadlock ensued, and in the months that followed, neither side was able to pull together a coalition that would allow them to create a new government. But on October 1, al-Maliki struck a deal with a Shia factions that had previously opposed him, putting him within striking distance of a majority in the new 325-member parliament. Al-Maliki had won the support of Shia movements, including a faction loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr . The parliamentary polls came as US combat missions came to an end in Iraq [GALLO/GETTY] The so-called Sadrists contested the elections in an alliance with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), led by Ammar al-Hakim, another Shia party that came third at the polls. The newly formed alliance came ahead of Jalal Talabani, the president, reappointing al-Maliki as prime minister in November. However, the event was marred by a walkout by al-Iraqiyya, the main Sunni-backed alliance led by former prime minister Iyad Allawi .

The party claimed that al-Maliki had reneged on an agreement to reinstate four Sunni leaders who had been banned for alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath party. In November, an agreement was reached on a government of unity that included posts for Allawi's party and drew the support of the Kurds. The agreement gave al-Iraqiyya, the position of speaker of the parliament as well as leadership of a newly created committee overseeing national security. The creation of the committee was a compromise pushed by the Obama administration to ensure the participation of Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the Iraqi government since 2003. The Kurds, who played the role of kingmaker in the final talks, as their seats in parliament were needed to create a majority, held on to the presidency, which resulted in the reappointment of Talabani. On December 21, parliament gave unanimous approval to the new government, just days before a constitutional deadline, thereby formally returning al-Maliki to power for a second term. Iraq in 2010, is perhaps the stablest it has been since the U.S occupation began.

And although the various poltical groups have been able to work out how they will share power in the government, their is no certainty as to what the future may hold. Will Iraqis finally be in a position to rebuild their country and society, or will the country sink back into chaos? Source: Al Jazeera Content on this website is for general information purposes only. Your comments are provided by your own free will and you take sole responsibility for any direct or indirect liability. You hereby provide us with an irrevocable, unlimited, and global license for no consideration to use, reuse, delete or publish comments, in accordance with Community Rules & Guidelines and Terms and Conditions . MORE FROM AL JAZEERA Iraq's PM leads again in tight election race | Reuters Wed Mar 17, 2010 | 3:40 PM EDT Iraq's PM leads again in tight election race An official registers the serial numbers on locks used for parliamentary election ballot boxes at a counting centre in Baghdad, March 15, 2010.

Reuters/SAAD SHALASH By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reclaimed the lead on Wednesday over secularist challenger Iyad Allawi in results from a March 7 parliamentary election that has been dogged by fraud allegations. Supporters of Maliki complained of cheating after earlier partial results showed their candidate trailing Allawi in an election so tight it is expected to take months of tough negotiations to form a new government. But Allawi, who served as prime minister from 2004-5, lost his narrow edge when new data released late on Wednesday showed Maliki's alliance ahead by some 40,000 votes nationwide. No matter what the final outcome, Allawi's strong showing, particularly among minority Sunnis resentful of the dominance of Shi'ite religious parties since 2003, has broad implications for the formation of the next government and stability in the country once U.S. troops withdraw.

The new but incomplete results representing about 83 percent of the vote put the State of Law coalition led by Maliki, a Shi'ite with a law-and-order message, ahead in seven of Iraq's 18 provinces, including electoral prizes Baghdad and Basra. Allawi's cross-sectarian Iraqiya alliance is leading in five provinces. Trailing the front runners are the Shi'ite Iraqi National Alliance (INA) and Kurdish parties which dominate Iraq's Kurdish north. It is too early to say who Iraq's next coalition government will include, and the weeks or months of charged negotiations ahead may become even more fraught if, as the close race suggests, the results are challenged by those who lose out. Ali al-Adeeb, a close Maliki ally, said earlier on Wednesday the State of Law bloc had been tipped off by election workers that votes were being manipulated in favor of a competitor he declined to name. The bloc has asked for a recount in Baghdad, where Maliki's lead has steadily narrowed. "Only when a recount and review is completed can we decide if IHEC's tally of our votes is accurate or not," he said.

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said the count was fair and included multiple checks against fraud. "The most recent preliminary results show a close race between major lists. That explains their fears and misgivings," said Karim al-Tamimi, an IHEC commissioner. COMPLEX SYSTEM IHEC, along with U.N. officials advising them, have played down allegations of fraud, which until now had mainly come from Allawi's camp. Almost 2,000 complaints have been logged, fewer than in Iraq's provincial polls in January 2009. "Systemic fraud is virtually impossible," a Western official said on condition of anonymity, suggesting the sheer complexity of Iraq's new voting system was itself an obstacle to fraud. The uncertainty risks exacerbating divisions and fuelling conflict in the crucial weeks and months ahead, particularly if the long-dominant Sunni minority feels the next government does not reflect its interests. Marginalization of Sunnis has been a major driver of violence since the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003. Sectarian violence exploded in 2006, when politicians took more than five months to form a government.

Support among Sunnis for Maliki, who has tried to market himself as a non-sectarian nationalist, was weakened when he supported a ban on candidates suspected of links to Saddam's Baath party, including a popular Sunni on Allawi's list. Safia al-Suhail, a State of Law candidate, said the bloc was exploring alliances with the INA and the Kurds, whose support may prove pivotal, but said a union with Iraqiya was unlikely. "If a fairly solid political front were to form against Iraqiya blocking its leaders from a meaningful role in post-election governance, or, worse, should the highly questionable process of de-Baathification be resurrected and exploited further...the domestic situation could still turn rather ugly," said Wayne White of the Middle East Institute. In Kirkuk, the disputed province that is a northern oil hub, Allawi has the thinnest of leads over a bloc of Kurdish parties that want to fold Kirkuk into their semi-autonomous enclave. But the picture in Kirkuk, like the rest of Iraq, could change. IHEC has yet to announce vote tallies for Iraqis living abroad and from 'special' voting that included soldiers, police, prison inmates and hospital patients and staff.

(Additional reporting by Khalid al-Ansary, Jim Loney and Rania El Gamal; Writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) ADVERTISEMENT Iraq Elections | Nuri al-Maliki | Allawi More ANALYSIS The perversity of Iraqi politics means the prime ministerial ambitions of the two men most-likely could be thwarted - despite their neck-and-neck finish way ahead of the rest of the field in the final count for elections held on March 7. Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqiya list won the most seats in Parliament along with the biggest share of the popular vote, is confidently inviting all sides to join a new governing coalition. But despite his remarkable performance, there are serious doubts that he can pick up the extra 72 MPs he needs for the minimum 163 backers he requires to hold government. If Allawi cannot get up, the incumbent Nouri Al-Maliki, who trails Iraqiya's 91 seats in the new Parliament by just two, would be next to be invited to put together a government.

But some in the blocs that might sign-on as coalition partners with his State of Law list are expected to demand that he be dumped as its nominee for the prime ministership. Maliki remains a caretaker leader for what is expected to be a months-long period of arm-wrestling before a new government is appointed. And though US diplomats say he has undertaken to abide by the law, his legal and security manoeuvring as the tightness of the count became apparent suggest he might have to be prised from office. "[There's] no way we'll accept the results," he said on Iraqi television late on Friday in Baghdad. Advertisement Already Maliki has wrong-footed Allawi by successfully applying to the Supreme Court for a ruling that the party leader who can cobble together the biggest coalition, not he whose list has won the most seats in Parliament, should get the first nod as prime minister. Maliki says he will be going back to the court to apply for a manual recount of all votes, and his backers are bent on using the disqualification of dozens of candidates in the days before the election to grind down Allawi's wafer-thin lead - some of whom Maliki referred to as "terrorists held in Iraqi prisons".

More troublingly, last week Maliki took the unusual step of describing himself as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the context of the post-election brawling; and he reportedly reassigned his more loyal army generals to the Baghdad area and is in the process of purging more than 70 police generals and colonels who have been accused of Baathist ties. Both men were too clever by half in positioning themselves for the election. Allawi, a secular Shiite, made a great pitch for the vote of Iraq's disaffected Sunni minority that represents up to 20 per cent of the population - but won so much of it that his credentials as a trustworthy guardian of the interests of the Shiite majority have come into question. Many Shiites fear that Allawi, a former Baathist who fell out with Saddam Hussein and in the mid-1990s mounted a failed coup, would allow the Saddam old-guard to return to positions of power. The Kurdistan Alliance - with a total of 43 MPs - will have difficulty joining Allawi because about 30 of his MPs won against the Kurdish parties that are demanding greater turf and autonomy, against the wishes of Sunnis in particular, but also the Shiite parties.

Maliki's problem is that in setting up a breakaway movement from a coalition of Shiite religious parties that took government after the last elections, he split the Shiite vote, which is 60-plus per cent of the population. And because Allawi was able to come through the middle, Maliki now must plead for support from the Shiites whom he spurned last year. The arithmetic reality confronting each of the leaders is that neither has won sufficient support to complete a governing coalition of the required 163 seats by striking a deal with just one of the other lists - or groupings of political parties - that contested the election. And to parlay with two or more of the also-rans is to be faced with near-impossible policy contradictions as each would-be partner tries to lock in the essentials of their agenda while excluding the ''must'' clauses of the other lists' platforms. At present the only sure potential coalition would be between the Allawi and Maliki lists - they have a combined 180 MPs. But while their platforms overlap, their egos do not. With just 32 MPs outside the four key blocs in the Parliament, both Allawi and Maliki will be desperate to secure the support of the Kurds.

But whichever of the two men achieves that outcome, he still will have to peel away a significant element of the other's list or of the 70 MPs of the religious Shiite Iraqi National Alliance. Asked if Maliki could be sacrificed to ensure Shiite control of the government, his spokesman told reporters: "No one can veto Prime Minister Maliki - he is the leading personality in the State of Law list." Iraqis have arrived at another knife-edge in their dramatic history. As expressed at the ballot-box, the will of a good number of voters was to go the way of the secular nationalists. But the formation of a government is out of their hands. Now the lists and the individual parties will navigate the treacherous waters between the lust for power and adherence to their platform. And as they proceed, the hand of Shiite Iran will be up the back of the Shiite parties, and that of the Sunni neighbours, Saudi Arabia in particular, will be up that of Allawi's Sunni-friendly list. The risk in all the likely scenarios - and in particular the difficulties that confront Allawi and Maliki - is that the apparent winners will become the real losers, an outcome that many of their supporters will be reluctant to accept.

1 comment Iraq: EX-PM Iyad Allawi throws his hat back into the ring - YouTube Iraq: EX-PM Iyad Allawi throws his hat back into the ring Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Mar 8, 2010 IRAQ-ELECTIONS - Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite, is giving outgoing PM Nuri al-Maliki a run for his money in Iraqs parliamentary election. Category Ayad Allawi | Iraq Business News Allawi: US Policy toward Iraq ‘Without a Compass’ By Editor on June 28, 2014 in Security By Mustafa al-Kadhimi for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Ayad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister and leader of the Iraqi Nationalist (“Wataniya”) Party, blamed the Iraqi government for policies that have allowed it to be “defeated by a bunch of […] Video: Former PM on Iraq Violence By Editor on November 8, 2013 in Security From CNN. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour speaks with Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi: Video: Interview with Former PM Ayad Allawi By Editor on June 20, 2013 in Politics More than a thousand people were killed in violence in Iraq last month according to the United Nations. The country appears to be dividing along religious lines, not helped by its neighbour Syria’s descent into civil war. In this BBC Hardtalk interview, Sarah Montague talks to Ayad Allawi, the country’s first Prime Minister after Saddam […] Allawi: Demonstrations Won’t Stop Unless Maliki Resigns By Editor on May 14, 2013 in Politics By Ali Abel Sadah for Al-Monitor.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. Iraqiya List leader and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said that the protests in the Iraq provinces that are home to a Sunni majority won’t stop unless Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s […] Opposition? What Opposition? The Incredible Shrinking Iraqiya Party By Editor on November 17, 2012 in Politics By Mustafa Habib. This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. Since it lost the race to power in 2010, major opposition bloc Iraqiya has been shrinking, with defections and internal dissent. Now two leading members want […] Is Iraqiyya a Sectarian or a National Party? By Editor on June 5, 2011 in Politics The following article was published on Saturday by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission.

The opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq […] Maliki Proposes Allawi for Top Arab League Post By Editor on March 15, 2011 in Politics Iraq’s State of Law Coalition, led by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, has reportedly proposed the head of the rival Iraqiya bloc, Iyad Allawi, to run for the position of Secretary General of the Arab League following Amr Moussa’s resignation. Moussa will stand down in order to run for the presidency of Egypt. The Iraqiya […] Allawi Backs Out of New Policy Body By Editor on March 3, 2011 in Politics Ayad Allawi, whose Iraqiya party won the most seats in last year’s election but failed to secure the position of prime minister, has resigned as chair of the National Council on Strategic Policies, because the supervisory council has not been formed. The position was created as a concession in a power-sharing deal that would allow […] Next Steps for Iraq and Afghanistan By Editor on December 21, 2010 in Security The following article was published by STRATFOR Global Intelligence. It is reproduced here in full with their permission.

The opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Iraqiya List leader Iyad Allawi meeting in Baghdad Tuesday night, a […] Allawi, Maliki, to Get Equal Salaries By Editor on December 14, 2010 in Blog Associated Press reports that Ayad Allawi will join the Shiite-led government being assembled by his top rival, Nouri al-Maliki, clearing a final hurdle tp end months of tortuous, post-election dealmaking. Despite recent negative comments, the two held what appeared to be a warm 90-minute meeting on Tuesday after which an Iraqiya spokeswoman said Allawi has […] By Editor on December 7, 2010 in Construction & Engineering In Iraq Ayad Allawi has reportedly threatened to quit the power-sharing government according to an interview with Britain’s Times newspaper on Tuesday. “Power-sharing is not happening,” Allawi said.

“It is not set to work in a meaningful way… If it does not change, I will not participate.” Despite his Iraqiya block narrowly winning elections in March, Allawi […] More Jobs For the Boys By Editor on December 1, 2010 in Blog It seems that the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and his team are having to be increasingly inventive in their efforts to piece together a new cabinet. Creating, in effect, two energy ministries – if indeed these rumours are true – will help increase the size of the cabinet pie that he can then dole […] Iraq recount fails to overturn Allawi election win | Reuters Sun May 16, 2010 | 1:32 PM EDT Iraq recount fails to overturn Allawi election win Iyad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and head of the secular Iraqiya coalition, waves at a news conference in Baghdad May 10, 2010.

Reuters/Mohammed Ameen By Ahmed Rasheed and Rania El Gamal | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD A cross-sectarian coalition led by secularist former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi held its two-seat win in Iraq's March 7 election after a recount of votes cast in Baghdad, elections officials said Sunday. But the poll victory of Allawi's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, confirmed by an 11-day manual recount of 2.5 million votes cast in the Iraqi capital, stood on shaky ground as Iraq's two major Shi'ite coalitions have already announced an alliance to form the largest bloc in parliament. Iraqiya won 91 seats, edging out the mainly Shi'ite State of Law coalition led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki with 89. Allawi has insisted the election win gave him the first right to form a new government but the union of Maliki's bloc with the Iran-friendly Iraqi National Alliance, the third-place finisher, could sideline him and anger Sunnis, raising fears of renewed sectarian conflict as U.S. troops prepare to leave.

Together, State of Law and INA would have 159 seats, four short of the needed parliamentary majority, making another Shi'ite-dominated government likely more than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein. Maliki had demanded the vote recount in Baghdad, alleging fraud. But when they finished the counting Friday, elections officials said they had found no signs of any fraud, manipulation, or "big mistakes." "I hope that all the political entities calm down," IHEC spokesman Qassim al-Aboudi said in announcing the results on Sunday. "The process has no defect and all the claims of fraud were not right." DELAYED GOVERNMENT FORMATION Baghdad, Iraq's capital and most populous city, was the biggest prize in the election with more than 20 percent of the seats in the 325-seat parliament. Mustafa al-Hiti, a senior member of Iraqiya, said Allawi's bloc had been confident the recount would confirm the result. "Unfortunately, State of Law delayed the formation of government for a month or more due to allegations that were not confirmed in reality and did not change any results," Hiti said.

"We hope to compensate the Iraqi people for this delay and expedite forming a government." IHEC said it would publish the results Monday and anyone with objections would have three days to file an appeal. After that, the results will be sent to the Supreme Court for certification. The court has no time limit but elections officials said they did not expect a long delay. The length of time it has taken to count ballots from the March 7 election and move on to certification has raised concerns of a protracted political vacuum that renders Iraq vulnerable to a resurgence of sectarian warfare. After the last parliamentary election in 2005, sectarian violence exploded when politicians took more than five months to negotiate a government. Thousands died in the worst of the fighting during 2006 and 2007. Overall violence has dropped sharply since, but attacks by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents have killed scores of people in the 10 weeks since the vote, including at least 125 in a wave of bombings and shootings across the country six days ago. U.S. DEPARTURE ON COURSE Despite the violence, U.S.

officials say they are on course to draw down troops from about 94,000 now to 50,000 by August 31, when Washington is scheduled to formally end combat operations. U.S. forces are scheduled to depart by the end of 2011, leaving security to Iraq's 650,000-strong military and police. While the recount did not change the coalitions' seat totals, small changes in the tallies would mean some winners would lose their seats to other members of the same bloc. "For example, Omar can replace Mohammed... but the number of the seats stays as is, there is no change," said Saad al-Rawi, one of IHEC's nine commissioners. Some of the change in the vote tallies resulted from a decision in April by a review panel to discard votes for 52 candidates with alleged links to Saddam's outlawed Baath Party. Nineteen of those candidates were in Baghdad. "The votes for the 52 candidates were wiped out so there were small differences," Rawi said.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Waleed Ibrahim, Muhanad Mohammed and Suadad al-Salhy, writing by Jim Loney; Editing by Paul Casciato) ADVERTISEMENT Iyad Allawi | Gwynne Dyer Iyad Allawi By Gwynne Dyer ⋅ March 3, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment 3 March 2010 Iraqi Election By Gwynne Dyer There are some bombs going off, but apart from that the election in Iraq on 7 March is a model of its kind. There are more than 6,000 candidates for the 352 seats in parliament, and the country is flooded with foreign observers who will monitor the process. Unlike last time, no major group is boycotting the election – and nobody knows who is going to win it. Iraq has come a long way since the Sunni-Shia civil war of 2005-07, when 3,000 murdered people were being found in Baghdad each month.

True, the most violent elements could just be waiting until all the Americans leave next year to start the fighting again, but it’s unlikely that they would let this election unfold smoothly if they had the power to disrupt it. And the more credible the election, the greater the legitimacy of the resulting government. It could be literally a new government, in the sense that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would no longer be running it. Maliki’s personal popularity among more “nationalist” Shias (i.e. less sectarian ones) is undiminished, and his “State of Law” alliance leads in the opinion polls, with a predicted 30 percent of the seats in the new parliament. But 30 percent is not a majority. To form a new government, Maliki’s party will need the support of either the secular nationalists of former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Movement, now at 22 percent in the polls, or of the conservative Shia religious party, the Iraqi National Alliance, which has 17 percent. They have both said that they will not accept Maliki as prime minister in any coalition government they join, and they may actually mean it.

Maliki would doubtless prefer to recreate the existing coalition with the Kurdish parties, but that arithmetic probably doesn’t work any more. Kurds are 20 percent of Iraq’s population, and when they all voted for the two traditional Kurdish parties (which cooperated at the national level), they were the king-makers of Iraqi politics. The recent rise of the reforming Goran (Change) party, however desirable in itself, destroys that Kurdish unity. But how nice it is to make such boring, routine calculations about the outcome of an Iraqi election! It’s almost as if the place had become a normal country again, and a democratic one at that. Iraqis certainly deserve such a happy ending after all the horrors they have been through. Are they are really going to get one? Al-Qaeda, which gained a foothold among the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, retains the ability to commit atrocities like the suicide bombings that killed 32 people in Baquba on Wednesday, but it is now only a marginal force among the Sunnis. The question is really whether the rest of the community has accepted its minority status and decided to make the best of it. The alienation of the Sunnis is very great.

They dominated Iraqi politics for centuries, and ten years ago most did not even realise that the Shias outnumbered them three-to-one. The US invasion drove them from power, they bore the brunt of the fight against the US occupation, and then they were dragged into a war against the Shias by the al-Qaeda fanatics. In the course of that war most mixed neighbourhoods in Baghdad were “cleansed” of their Sunni population, and the city is now overwhelmingly Shia. A very large proportion of the two million Iraqi refugees abroad and the two million internally displaced people are Sunnis. Even in this election, the Shia-dominated “de-Baathification” committee disqualified a number of prominent Sunni candidates from running. Yet most Sunnis will be voting this time, rather than boycotting the election as they did in 2005. In retrospect the Sunni community sees that as a grave error, as they had almost no influence on central government policy between then and now. They are now willing at least to try to live within the new reality of minority status in a country where religion plays a far larger role than previously.

The threat of an Arab-Kurdish civil war over the disputed city of Kirkuk is also in decline, despite the importance to the Kurds of its surrounding oil-fields. The new Goran party takes a more conciliatory approach to the Arabic-speaking minority in that city, most of whom were settled there decades ago as part of Saddam Hussein’s Arabisation programme. It does not control the Kurdistan Regional Government, but it is certainly a moderating influence. It’s a bit early to see Iraq as a kind of Middle Eastern Belgium, with as many bitter internal divisions as that deeply divided country but also its enduring commitment to democracy. (One parallel, however, is a given: it will probably take as incredibly long to form a coalition government after this election as it does in Belgium.) The wounds in Iraq are very fresh, and its democracy is still new and fragile. But after the decades of oppression, the hundreds of thousands killed since 2003, the millions more turned into refugees, and the steep fall in the status of women, it would be nice if Iraq had something positive to show for its long ordeal. We’ll know by 2020.

__________________________________ By Gwynne Dyer ⋅ June 27, 2004 ⋅ Post a comment 27 June 2004 Allawi’s Dilemma By Gwynne Dyer The last thing Iyad Allawi needs right now is a photo-op of President George W. Bush congratulating him on becoming prime minister of the ‘sovereign’ (but US-appointed) government of Iraq. What he must do in order to survive, not only politically but personally, is to put as much space as possible between the himself and the United States, so if security concerns force Mr Bush’s handlers to cancel his long-scheduled secret trip to Baghdad on 30 June to do the ‘hand-over of power’ in person, it will be all right with Allawi. Every Iraqi knows what happened to Nuri Said, fourteen times prime minister and London’s main instrument for controlling the British-appointed kings who ruled Iraq until 1958. When Iraqi nationalists rebelled and overthrew the puppet monarchy, they machine-gunned the young king, who was just playing the role he had been born into.

But when a mob caught Nuri Said two days later, trying to escape Baghdad dressed as a woman, they tore him apart with their bare hands and left his remains in the road to be flattened by the traffic like road-kill. Iraqis do not like collaborators. The risk of ending up the same way must haunt Iyad Allawi, for his position is quite similar. According to the latest opinion poll conducted by the Coalition Provisional Authority itself, 92 percent of Arab Iraqis now see Americans as occupiers, and only 2 percent as liberators. Allawi owes his position entirely to the United States, depends on US-controlled money for the day-to-day operations of his government, and must rely on American troops to protect him and fight the resistance. He is actually more compromised than Nuri Said was, and he knows it. The security situation in Iraq is even worse than it was during the uprisings in April, because the rebels in Falluja and the rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr both effectively won their confrontations with American forces.

Falluja is now a no-go area for US forces (though they bomb it occasionally), and it serves as safe haven and interim capital for the Sunni insurgents who have done most of the fighting against the occupation so far. The young extremist Moqtada al-Sadr was neither killed nor arrested by US forces, as the CPA spokesman kept promising. Instead, his influence among the majority Shias has grown at the expense of his more moderate elders, and Najaf and Kerbala have also effectively become no-go areas for US forces. Half of the newly recruited Iraqi police and army troops refused to fight fellow Iraqis on behalf of foreigners during the April revolts, and 10 percent actually switched sides and fought for the rebels. The spectacular coordinated attacks of 25 June, when insurgents stormed police stations and government buildings in five cities, killing 85 and injuring 320, show how powerful the Iraqi resistance has now become. To talk of the insurgents as “terrorists” is just name-calling; terrorists do not stand and fight.

Nor are they necessarily the “enemies of democracy and of the Iraqi people,” as US propaganda insists; they include many Iraqis who believe, rightly or wrongly, that neither genuine democracy nor real freedom is part of the Bush administration’s plans for Iraq. These are the people that Allawi must convince or marginalise if he is to succeed, or indeed even to survive. That is why, last weekend, he started to emphasise the difference between “foreign terrorists” — the Islamist holy warriors who he and most Iraqis believe are responsible for the indiscriminate suicide bombings that regularly devastate Iraqi cities — and the honest Iraqi patriots who are simply fighting to drive the Americans out. He didn’t put it in exactly those words, of course, since it is the United States that pays his bills, but it was clearly the logic behind his offer of amnesty to insurgents who fit the latter category. An amnesty is obviously the right strategy, but that doesn’t mean it will work. Many, probably most Iraqis do not see the ‘hand-over’ to Allawi’s government as a new beginning.

For the multitude of cynics, it’s just the exiles who came back to Iraq on the coat-tails of the US army re-arranging their deck-chairs once again. Moreover, the insurgents have the bit between their teeth, and people are less inclined to compromise when they think they’re going to win. Allawi himself is a particular problem: he has been a prime CIA ‘asset’ for many years, and admits to having taken money from a total of 15 foreign intelligence agencies. All in the cause of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, he insists, and it’s probably true — but it’s not the CV you would choose if your task was to persuade sceptical Iraqi nationalists that your real master is the Iraqi people, not the United States. Allawi is trying to show that he’s not a puppet of the American occupation forces, but it’s hard to do when the truth is that he’d be dead in a day without American protection. His press conferences are held in the heart of the Green Zone, the headquarters of the US civil administration in Iraq, and you have to pass through four checkpoints manned by American soldiers to get to them. There is not a single Iraqi soldier in sight.

________________________________________ To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 8 and 9. (“An amnesty…States”) NOTE: IT’S NOT CLEAR YET WHETHER BUSH WILL GO TO BAGHDAD OR NOT. IF USING THIS ARTICLE AFTER 30 JUNE, MODIFY THE FIRST PARA AS FOLLOWS: IF HE WENT: The last thing Iyad Allawi needed right now was a photo-op of President George W. Bush congratulating him on becoming prime minister of the ‘sovereign’ (but US-appointed) government of Iraq. What he must do in order to survive, not only politically but personally, is to put as much space as possible between the himself and the United States, so if security concerns had forced Mr Bush’s handlers to cancel his long-scheduled secret trip to Baghdad on 30 June to do the ‘hand-over of power’ in person, it would have been all right with Allawi. IF HE DIDN’T GO: The last thing Iyad Allawi needed right now was a photo-op of President George W. Bush congratulating him on becoming prime minister of the ‘sovereign’ (but US-appointed) government of Iraq.

What he must do in order to survive, not only politically but personally, is to put as much space as possible between the himself and the United States, so it’s just as well that security concerns force Mr Bush’s handlers to cancel his long-scheduled secret trip to Baghdad on 30 June to do the ‘hand-over of power’ in person. Allawi doesn’t mind at all. —

Question: In 2010, Iyad Allawi and Nuri Al-Maliki contested an election in which country?
Answer: Iraq