Saturday, January 21, 2006 - 12:00 AM
By Richard Boudreaux - Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Shiite Muslim and Kurdish parties leading Iraq failed to win enough seats in last month's parliamentary election to form a new government on their own, complete returns showed Friday, setting the stage for U.S.-backed talks aimed at bringing Sunni Arabs and other minority parties into a broader ruling coalition.
The tally confirmed the pre-eminence of a Shiite alliance led by two Iranian-backed religious parties, which won 128 of the parliament's 275 seats. The next largest bloc, 53 seats, went to Kurdish parties, which again are expected to join the Shiites as junior partners in running the country.
But their combined total of 181 was three seats shy of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify the makeup of a new government, and it was far fewer than the most optimistic Shiite forecasts right after the Dec. 15 election. Smaller parties seized on the outcome to demand a share of power in negotiations that are expected to play out for weeks.
Stakes are high. U.S. officials aim to broker a significant Sunni role in the government — Iraq's first with a full four-year term since the ouster of Saddam Hussein — in the hope of undermining a Sunni-led insurgency and allowing U.S. troops to go home.
The 10.9 million Iraqis who went to the polls Dec. 15, a turnout of 70 percent, voted sharply along ethnic and sectarian lines. Friday's returns underscored the growing appeal of parties based on sectarian and ethnic identity, and the sharp decline of more moderate secular rivals favored by Washington.
In a statement anticipating the results, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called on the leading Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties to form an all-inclusive government. Khalilzad, who is expected to play a mediating role, said the parties "must come together to reinforce their commitment to democratic principles and national unity."
Results may buoy unity
Diplomats in touch with the contending parties said the fragmented vote favored such an approach. The Shiite and Kurdish blocs, which had more than two-thirds of the seats in the interim parliament elected a year ago, fell below that mark this time.
"They are close but they don't have it," a Western diplomat in Baghdad said. "This should encourage movement toward a unity government."
Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam's rule. After boycotting last January's election and shutting themselves out of the interim government, Sunni parties will enter the negotiations with 55 seats divided between two blocs.
The Iraqi Accordance Front, backed by influential Sunni clerics, won 44 of those seats; the others went to the more militant Iraqi Front for National Dialogue. Sunnis had 17 seats in the departing parliament, none representing major parties.
The Sunnis' gains came at the expense of Shiites, Kurds and secular parties.
The Iraqi National List, led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite politician who was the U.S.-appointed prime minister from June 2004 until April, won 25 seats, dropping from 40 seats in the previous parliament.
Two other secular parties in the race, headed by Mishan Jaboori and Mithal Aloosi, won just four seats between them.
Chalabi shut out
A party led by interim Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite once favored by the Bush administration to rule after Saddam, failed to win a seat.
The remaining seats went to ethnic and sectarian-based splinter groups.
Friday's announcement paved the way for earnest negotiations, following weeks of informal talks among party leaders.
In the discussions so far, Shiite leaders and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, have endorsed the need for a broad coalition government in order to stabilize the country. But they also have obstacles that might thwart that goal.
Several Shiite leaders said this week that their victorious coalition would not give up control of the Interior Ministry and the police. Some said they favored giving the Defense Ministry to a Kurd; it is now run by a secular Sunni.
Also, the most influential Shiite politician, Abdul Aziz Hakim, said recently he was unwilling to "change the essence" of the constitution, despite an earlier promise to Sunnis that the new government would be given four months to make substantial revisions. Sunnis want constitutional changes that would protect their access to oil revenue.
Many Sunnis fear the formation of a Shiite- and Kurd-dominated government because both groups favor making Iraq a decentralized, federal state through formation of largely autonomous regions of Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis — an outcome that would leave the Sunnis largely excluded from the country's oil revenues.
Puppet status feared
Some Sunnis also fear vengeance from Shiites and Kurds, who faced severe repression under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein while Sunnis were rewarded. Finally, many Sunnis and secular Iraqis, and even some Shiites, worry their country will be transformed into a puppet of Iran, a neighboring Shiite theocracy.
"This could lead to the breakup of Iraq," said Saleh Mutlak, head of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, which won 11 seats. Mutlak warned that the country's Sunni-dominated insurgency would become "very fierce" if the Shiites and Kurds attempted to form their own government without Sunni input.
"They will not do it unless they are mad," Mutlak said Friday. "But in Iraq, you can expect everything."
Also yesterday:
The U.S. Army, under pressure to issue more protective gear to its soldiers in Iraq, has signed a $70 million emergency contract with a California company to rush ceramic body armor to the front lines. The sole-source contract, with California-based Ceradyne, was approved last week and announced Friday. It comes on the heels of a Pentagon study that found side armor could have saved dozens of U.S. lives in Iraq.
Los Angeles Times reporters Alissa J. Rubin, Chris Kraul, Caesar Ahmed, Saif Rasheed, Raheem Salman, Asmaa Waguih and Shamil Aziz contributed to this report, which was supplemented by The Associated Press and The Washington Post.