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| Iraq |
| Early Iraq Poll results |
| 2005-12-17 |
| The Shiite religious coalition is leading in the polls in Iraqâs five southern provinces, the Kurdish Alliance looks set to win the north and a Sunni coalition leads in a central province, unofficial results showed yesterday after millions of Iraqis voted in elections. The strong election results for the conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance were expected in southern Iraq. However, the UIA might face stiffer competition in urban areas like Baghdad from secular former premier Iyad Allawi, whose list often scored second in Shiite regions. In Kerbala province, the UIA may have marked its highest score, at 85 percent, according to a source close to the independent electoral commission but not confirmed by the body. The UIA includes religious parties like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafariâs Dawa party. In Babil province, 70 percent of the electorate went for the UIA, with Allawi managing to scrape up 17 percent, according to an election commission source. In the Kurdish north, the Kurdish alliance, pairing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), apparently perpetuated its total dominance of the autonomous regionâs politics. In Arbil, the alliance took 86 percent of the votes while the Kurdish Islamic Party took only 3.4 percent, according to a PUK official. In Dohuk, the alliance claimed 76 percent, and 71 percent in Sulaimaniyah. In the Sunni-dominated province of Salaheddin, the capital of which is Saddam Husseinâs hometown of Tikrit, a Sunni coalition that included the Iraqi Islamic Party led with 45 percent of the votes. It was followed by Allawi at 30 percent, an electoral source said. More than two-thirds of Iraqi voters turned out nationwide in the countryâs landmark election, according to first estimates yesterday, but final results were not expected for at least two weeks. An international monitoring mission said the election had generally met international standards, and hailed the organizers for meeting a âdifficult challenge.â In many regions, voters were thought to give strong local backing to parties or coalitions based on Shiite, Sunni, Turkmen and Christian leanings. |
| Posted by:phil_b |