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Iraqi exit polls
A straw poll conducted after voting closed in Iraq's election on Thursday showed the dominant Shi'ite Islamist bloc retained a strong following, but was being challenged by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular list.More than 500 interviews with voters by Reuters reporters across Iraq indicated strong support in Shi'ite areas for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the senior partner in a ruling coalition with the Kurds. The UIA says it has won 57 percent of the national vote for Iraq's first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein fell. But Allawi appeared to have made up ground from his 14 percent showing in January's poll for an interim assembly. The Reuters poll suggests Allawi could be a force in mixed areas like the capital Baghdad, which has 59 of the 230 regional seats available in the 275-seat parliament. He has a strong following among secular Sunnis and Shi'ites in Baghdad but the informal poll suggests the test for him will be how many of his fellow Shi'ites in the capital remain loyal to the Islamist UIA, or "555" list. Voters interviewed as they left a polling station in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad showed 48 percent voted for the UIA, with Allawi's list scoring 38 percent. A high voter turnout was reported in the mainly Sunni Arab western province of Anbar, where most people boycotted the January ballot or were too scared to vote, allowing the Shi'ites and non-Arab Kurds to dominate the interim assembly. The Reuters poll suggested the Anbar vote was split between the Islamist Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), followed closely by Saleh al-Mutlak's secular Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, which has strong Baathist links. In the other predominantly Sunni province of Salahaddin, which includes Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, former Baathist Allawi appeared to be challenging the two Sunni lists. From 50 voters surveyed in Tikrit, Reuters found 14 had voted for Allawi, 13 for the IAF and 12 for Mutlak's list. Iraq's southern provinces -- the battleground between Islamist and secular Shi'ites -- produced a mixed picture. The UIA, made up of the three Islamist Shi'ite parties, appeared to have retained a clear majority in its traditional strongholds. In the holy city of Najaf, about 90 percent had voted for the Shi'ite Islamists and in the city of Hilla, 70 percent of those polled also said they had chosen the UIA. But the Shi'ite bloc looked to command only about half the vote in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, in the south. The Kurdish coalition, which won 25 percent of seats in January, retained overwhelming support in the northeastern Kurdish provinces over its Kurdish Islamist rival. My prediction for an Allawi/Kurdish lead government is looking good. Posted by: phil_b 2005-12-15 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=137489 |