Iraq election news. posted by Richard Seymour

Tex has the news:

*UIA, the main Shiite list: 47.6 per cent
*PUK/KDP Kurdish coalition: 25.4 per cent
*Allawi's list: 13.6 per cent.

That accounts for 96.6% of the total vote, and is very close to what Juan Cole has been predicting . Cole reports that:

The Sunni Arabs (20 percent of the population and the former ruling group) mostly did not come out to vote. Only 2 percent voted in Anbar province, where Fallujah and Ramadi are. (Remember Condoleeza Rice talking about people voting in Fallujah? That was propaganda pure and simple.) In Ninevah province about 17 percent of the population voted, but a lot of those were Kurds and Turkmen. The list of old-time Sunni Arab nationalist Adnan Pachachi, the Independent Democrats, only received 17,000 votes, not enough to seat him or any of his other party members in parliament. Interim President Ghazi al-Yawir's Iraqiyun list got less than 2 percent and probably will only get 4 or 5 seats in the 275-member parliament. Al-Yawir is from the largely Sunni Shamar tribe.

Noticeably, the Iraqi Communist Party have got fuck all for throwing their credibility in with the Americans. Their slogan wasn't all that great either: "Free homeland, happy people!" No no no - free booze, happy people. Socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, happy people. Occupiers out, happy people. Work on it, boys.

And of the Sunnis who overwhelmingly did not vote? Tex cites MSNBC :

[T]he minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein will have few seats in the 275-member assembly that will be formed by the election — and little political influence.

"Which underestimates the political influence of bombs and guns, doesn't it?" He quips.

So, much as anticipated. The distribution of votes points to a Shia-Kurd alliance, although that could be fractious. Allawi is reduced to leading a rump with the policies of Hun Sen and the popularity of Charles Kennedy. The turnout was on the lower end of what was anticipated (50-80%).

Riverbend , who has a new book coming out, is a little worried:

I literally had chills going up and down my spine as I watched Abdul Aziz Al Hakeem of Iranian-inclined SCIRI dropping his ballot into a box. Behind him, giving moral support and her vote, was what I can only guess to be his wife. She was shrouded literally from head to foot and only her eyes peeped out of the endless sea of black. She stuffed her ballot in the box with black-gloved hands and submissively followed a very confident Hakeem. E. turned to me with a smile and a wink, “That might be you in a couple of years…” I promptly threw a sofa cushion at him.

Most of our acquaintances (Sunni and Shia) didn’t vote. My cousin, who is Shia, didn’t vote because he felt he didn’t really have ‘representation’ on the lists, as he called it. I laughed when he said that, “But you have your pick of at least 40 different Shia parties!” I teased, winking at his wife. I understood what he meant though. He’s a secular, educated, non-occupation Iraqi before he’s Sunni or Shia- he’s more concerned with having someone who wants to end the occupation than someone Shia.

Read the whole post.