Shiites show strong lead

2005-02-04 21:54

Baghdad, Iraq - A new, partial tally of votes on Friday from Iraq's elections showed a Shiite coalition whose leaders have close ties to Iran rolling up a strong lead over other tickets, including that of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

The United Iraqi Alliance, which has the endorsement of Iraq's top Shiite clerics, won more than two-thirds of the 3,3 million votes counted so far, the election commission said. Allawi's ticket was running second with more than 579 700 votes.

The new election figures represented partial returns from 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces, said Hamdiyah al-Husseini, an election commission official. All 10 provinces have heavy Shiite populations.

The returns included the 15% of votes in Basra provinces counted and certified so far, and 80% tallied in the less densely populated Muthanna province. Votes from 35% of the more than 5 200 polling centres around the country have been counted, al-Husseini said.

No returns have been released from mainly Sunni provinces north and west of the capital. Sunni Arabs are believed to have stayed away from the polls in large numbers.

That has sparked fears that the Sunni Arab minority will reject any government and constitution that emerge from the election, adding fuel to the insurgency that has plagued Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein nearly two years ago.

Shiite Muslims, who make up 60% of Iraq's 26 million people, turned out in droves, seizing the opportunity to turn their majority status in Iraq into political power for the first time. The Alliance - which was endorsed by the widely revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - has reaped the greatest benefit, even though Allawi is a secular Shiite.

The Alliance's leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, and others among its top candidates spent years of exile in Iran, helping build a movement against Saddam and building ties with the regime there. Though many clerics are on the ticket, its officials have said they don't seek to impose Islamic law in Iraq.

The number of seats a political faction wins in the 275-member National Assembly will be based on the proportion of votes each faction receives. Around 14 million Iraqis were eligible to vote, although the turnout in Sunday's vote has not been announced. Around 265 000 Iraqis abroad also cast ballots in 14 countries.

Officials said partial counts showed the main Kurdish faction held the lead in the overseas vote, with 29%. Large Kurdish populations turned out in European nations in particular, though the Alliance had a large vote from Iraqis living in Iran.

As the partial returns continue to be tallied in Baghdad, election officials also announced that they were investigating allegations of voting irregularities in Mosul and other areas.

Problems in Mosul could lead to an outcry from a variety of communities that they were squeezed out of the balloting: Mosul and surrounding Ninevah province have large Sunni Arab, Kurdish and Christian populations.

- AP