Vol. 73/No. 7      February 23, 2009

Iraqi troops and police took more responsibility for securing the event, which happened without suicide bombings or other attacks. Tehran’s closest allies in Iraq lost ground as did the Kurdish-led bloc in Nineveh Province. Voter turnout in the Sunni areas exceeded that in 2005.

Some 90 percent of the votes have been counted. Final results are not expected for two more weeks.

The State of Law coalition led by Maliki’s Dawa Party will come out on top, displacing its main Shiite-based rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).

State of Law will take the most seats in 9 of 14 provinces, including Baghdad and all but one of the majority-Shiite provinces—Karbala, where the party of Karbala City mayor Yousef Majid al-Habboubi received the most votes with 13 percent.

Al-Maliki became prime minister in 2006 as a compromise between what at the time were the two stronger forces in the Shiite bloc: the ISCI and the Sadrist movement led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who currently lives in Iran.

Al-Maliki’s rise in popularity can be largely attributed to the dramatic reduction in attacks and bombings by al-Qaeda and Sunni and Shiite militias while he was in office. Al-Maliki has sought to remold the image of his Dawa Party, which is a Shiite religious party by origin, as a nonsectarian Iraqi nationalist party.

Unlike the ISCI and the Sadrists, the Dawa Party had no militia and had the weakest party base. Al-Maliki made up for this, in part, by using his office to set up and fund “support councils,” or tribal-based militias, throughout Iraq in the months leading up to the elections, securing alliances not only in the Shiite provinces but among ruling sheiks in the Sunni areas as well.

Iraq’s presidential council—made up of President Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and vice presidents Tariq al-Hushimi of the Sunni-based Iraqi Islamic Party and Adel Abdul Mahdi of the ISCI—opposed al-Maliki’s formation of the support councils.

The ISCI won more seats than the Sadrist-supported parties in six of the 10 majority-Shiite provinces. The Sadrists parties came in second in Baghdad behind State of Law with 9 percent.

The ISCI, which still wields major influence in many of the Shiite areas, has close ties to the Iranian government. Its Badr Brigades militia, which has been incorporated into the Iraqi army and police, was trained in Iran. The ISCI is also the only party that had called for the creation of an autonomous Shiite region.

Al-Sadr had continued to use his Mahdi Army militia to fight for influence until it was decisively defeated by Iraq forces in an operation overseen by al-Maliki last year.

Elections were held in 14 of 18 provinces. The remaining four provinces include three that make up the Kurdistan Regional Government and the disputed province of Kirkuk. Provincial elections in the Kurdish region are schedule for May 19.

The Kurds are an historically oppressed nationality in the region. The fight for Kurdish independence remains one of the uncontrolled forces of the class struggle in the region unleashed by Washington’s war.

Al-Maliki has worked to combat the Kurdish movement for autonomy, a movement both Arab Shiite and Arab Sunni capitalists—as well as the governments of the United States, Iran, Turkey, and Syria—are united in opposing. He established support councils in the Kurdish areas as a counterweight to the pro-autonomy forces.

In Nineveh Province, which is 60 percent to 70 percent Sunni Arab, the Kurdish parties had 31 of 41 seats in the local parliament as a result of a widespread electoral boycott by Sunni parties in 2005.

As expected, the Nineveh Brotherhood, a coalition dominated by the main Kurdish parties that also includes the Communist Party, has now lost its majority. The Hadba party, led by former Baathists, won nearly half the votes, while the Kurdish Alliance got about a quarter.

Al-Maliki has been replacing Kurdish military units in Nineveh with Arab contingents.The Sunni coalition dominated by the Iraqi Islamic Party lost ground, receiving the most votes by a narrow margin in two of the four majority-Sunni provinces.

About half of the country’s 15 million registered voters turned out. The lowest turnout in any province was 40 percent in Sunni Anbar Province, up from 2 percent in 2005.

While the Iraqi Islamic Party had controlled the Anbar local parliament, their governmental power in the province diminished. When Sunni tribal-based militias, many of which had previously fought U.S. forces, began to ally with the U.S. military against al-Qaeda, they also gained political influence.

Washington poured in money to support these forces, which also received backing from al-Maliki’s office. They became known as the Awakening movement. It appears the Awakening, led by Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, will come in a very close second with 17 percent, just behind the Iraqi National Project of Saleh al-Mutlaq, which describes itself as a secular, nonsectarian party.

When it looked like Abu Risha’s group would lose out in Anbar to the Iraqi Islamic Party, he threatened to take up arms. It now appears the Iraqi Islamic Party will come in third there.  
 
 
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