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.
| That doesn't sound real close to me, but I guess it doesn't include the Kurds... |
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