so, we're gonna turn Iraq over to radical Shi' ites....sounds like a plan
Iraqi vote count so far shows cleric-backed Shi'ite list in lead
By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | February 4, 2005
BAGHDAD -- As a post-election calm gave way to a burst of deadly attacks, Iraqi election officials yesterday released partial results in the ballot for a new national legislature that showed a slate of cleric-backed Shi'ite Muslim parties taking a strong lead.
The partial results from six provinces, including Baghdad and five heavily Shi'ite areas in the south, showed overwhelming majorities for the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition that is led by parties that back a strong role for Islam in politics and claims the support of Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
The figures, while preliminary and accounting for only about 10 percent of the country's polling stations, left a top official of one of the leading Islamist parties so confident that he said the slate's leaders would try to prevent US-backed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi from keeping his job.
"He's had his chance," said Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, deputy to the leader of the Da'wa Party, interim Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari, who is a contender for the prime minister's slot. "We're here to give other people a chance."
The figures were released as violence surged in Iraq for the first time since the election on Sunday. News reports cited incidents that claimed at least 23 lives, including those of two US Marines killed in action in Anbar Province west of Baghdad. Twelve army recruits were killed south of Kirkuk after rebels ordered them off a bus and ordered two others to warn people not to sign up.
US and Iraqi officials had cautioned that it would be harder for Iraqi forces to cope with the day-to-day insurgency than it was on election day, when car traffic was shut down across the country.
Sh'ite parties have called for a harsher crackdown on insurgents and criticized Allawi for bringing in former members of the ousted Ba'ath Party to run the security forces.
According to the incomplete results, the Shi'ite-backed Alliance was outpolling the closest contender, Allawi's Iraqi List, by about 5 to 1 in five southern Shi'ite provinces that include the cities of Nasiriyah, Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniya, and Samawa. In what election officials called "mixed" areas of Baghdad and the surrounding province, the Alliance was leading Allawi's list by 350,069 votes to 140,364.
A lopsided victory for the Shi'ite Alliance, many of whose leaders have strong ties to Iran, could further alienate Sunni Muslims, whose turnout was much lower because of violence in areas plagued by the Sunni-led insurgency and because of calls for a boycott by some Sunni clerics.
It was too soon to project national results from the partial findings, which included a total of 1.6 million votes counted from about 10 percent of the nation's polling stations. The votes counted so far represent about 25 percent of the polling stations in Baghdad and 45 to 70 percent of polling stations in the other five provinces. No heavily Kurdish or Sunni Muslim provinces were included.