BAGHDAD—The razor-thin margin captured by the Shiite alliance here in election results announced yesterday seems almost certain to enshrine a weak government that would be unable to push through sweeping changes, such as measures granting Islam a central role in the new Iraqi state.
The verdict handed down by Iraqi voters in the Jan. 30 election appeared to be a divided one, with the Shiite alliance, backed by the clerical leadership in Najaf, opposed in nearly equal measure by an array of mostly secular minority parties.
According to Iraqi leaders, the fractured mandate almost certainly means a long round of negotiating is about to begin, in which the Shiite alliance will have to strike deals with parties run by the Kurds and others, most of which are secular and broadly opposed to an enhanced role for Islam or an overbearing Shiite government.
The Shiites' 48 per cent of the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to control the 275-member National Assembly, meaning they have no choice but to build alliances in order to govern Iraq's 26 million people.
There was dancing in the streets in Kurdish cities after election results were announced, and a strong but quiet satisfaction among Shiites.
"This is a new birth for Iraq," election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said, announcing the results of the first free elections in Iraq in more than 50 years and the first since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance ticket received about 4 million votes. The Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of two main Kurdish parties, finished second with 2.1 million votes, or 26 per cent, and the Iraqi List headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi stood third with 1.1 million votes, or nearly 14 per cent.
Parties have three days to lodge complaints, after which the results will be certified and seats in the new assembly distributed.
The main role of the Iraqi government over the next 10 months will be drafting a permanent constitution, which must pass a vote of the assembly and then be put to a vote of the people later this year. The role of Islam is expected to be one of the most contentious issues.
The results of the balloting appeared to leave Kurdish leaders in a particularly strong position to shape the government. The Kurds are America's closest allies in Iraq, and most of their leaders are of a strong secular bent.
Among the demands the Kurds and other groups will put to Shiite leaders as the price for their co-operation will be an insistence on a more secular state and concessions on Kirkuk, the ethnically divided city that Kurdish leaders want to integrate into their regional government. Kurdish leaders also say they will insist that the Iraqi president be a Kurd.
The prospect of a divided National Assembly, split between religious and secular parties, also appeared to signal a continuing role for the U.S. government, which already maintains 150,000 troops here, to help broker disputes.
As the final vote totals were being announced yesterday, Shiite leaders appeared to be scaling back their expectations, and preparing to reach out to parties in the opposition to help them form a new government.
"We have to compromise," said Adnan Ali, a senior leader in the Dawa party, one of the largest parties in the United Iraqi Alliance.
"Even though we have a majority, we will need other groups to form a government.''
The vote tally, which appeared to leave the Shiite alliance with about 140 of the national assembly's 275 seats, fell short of what Shiite leaders had been expecting, and seemed to blunt some of the triumphant talk that could already be heard in some corners. The results seemed to ease fears among Iraq's Sunni, Kurd and Christian minorities that the leadership of the Shiite majority might feel free to ignore minority concerns, and possibly fall under the sway of powerful clerics, some of whom advocate the establishment of a strict Islamic state.
As a result, some Iraqi leaders predicted the Shiite alliance would try to form a "national unity government" containing Kurdish and Sunni leaders, as well as secular Shiites, possibly including Allawi. Such a leadership would all but ensure no decisions would be taken without a broad national consensus.
One senior Iraqi official, a non-Shiite who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the slim majority won by the Shiite alliance signalled even greater obstacles for the Shiite parties in the future. If the Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the election, decide to participate in the future, they would almost certainly dilute the already thin margin the Shiite alliance enjoys.