This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 005065 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/20/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PNAT IZ
SUBJECT: PRELIMINARY RESULTS POINT TO BIG SHIA ALLIANCE 
VICTORY; ALLAWI FARING POORLY 
 
REF: BAGHDAD 4778 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Robert S. Ford for 
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (C)  Summary:  Initial election returns from most of 
Iraq released on December 19 showed the Shia Islamist 
Coalition breezing towards a strong showing, while the list 
of former Prime Minister Allawi was scoring much lower than 
it had hoped, especially in its home base of Baghdad.  The 
Sunni Tawaffuq list was easily besting other Sunni Arab 
lists, but its leaders on December 20 threatened to boycott 
the next assembly due to what they alleged was massive 
fraud on December 15.  The Kurds, meanwhile, are scoring 
about as expected.  Unless the election commission greatly 
changes the results as a result of fraud investigations, 
the Shia list will likely reach nearly 130 seats in the 275 
member Iraqi parliament.  Thus, the Shia Islamist coalition 
could conceivably join with the Kurds in a replay of the 
April 2005 deal to stand up an Iraqi government around a 
Shia-Kurd axis.  We are urging the Allawi, Tawaffuq and 
Kurdish lists to join as a bloc before negotiating with the 
Shia list about the next government. 
 
¶2.  (U) In a December 19 press conference, the IECI 
announced partial counts for 11 governorates representing 
162 of the 230 directly elected seats for the Council of 
Representatives.  Warning that these results were still 
subject to change and only represented partial counts, the 
IECI read out 76-98 percent counts for each of the 11 
governorates: 
 
-- Babil - 11 seats - 95 percent complete 
-- Baghdad - 59 seats - 89 percent complete 
-- Basrah - 16 seats - 98 percent complete 
-- Dahuk - 7 seats - 93 percent complete 
-- Erbil - 13 seats - 76 percent complete 
-- Karbala - 6 seats - completion percentage not announced 
-- Maysan - 7 seats - 98 percent complete 
-- Najaf - 8 seats - percentage completion not announced 
-- Salahaddin - 8 seats - 89 percent complete 
-- Sulaymaniyah - 15 seats - 98 percent complete 
-- Thi Qar - 12 seats - 98 percent complete 
 
¶3. (SBU) Extrapolating the data, Post estimates the 
following seat allocation for those 162 seats: 
 
-- Shia Alliance (List 555) - 87 seats 
-- Kurdish Alliance (List 730) - 32 seats 
-- National Iraqi List (List 731) - 16 seats 
-- Tawaffuq (List 618) - 16 seats 
-- Kurdistan Islamic Union (List 561) - 4 seats 
-- National Dialogue (List 667) - 3 seats 
-- Al-Rissaliyun (List 631) - 1 seat 
-- Mithal al-Alusi (List 620) - 1 seat 
-- Al-Rafidain (List 740) - 1 seat 
-- Liberation and Reconciliation (List 516) - 1 seat 
 
Among the notable absences is the Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi 
National Congress (List 569). 
 
------------------------------------ 
Shia Islamist Opponents Most Unhappy 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C)  A dejected outgoing National Assembly Speaker 
Hajim al-Hasani, who was the number two on Allawi's Baghdad 
list, told PolCouns the evening of December 19 that the 
initial numbers looked very bad for Allawi.  He said the 
poor score in Baghdad was a big blow the List 731's 
national hopes.  He seemed little interested in PolCouns' 
advice that Hasani move to coalition talks with the Kurds 
and Sunni Arabs.  Hasani opined that Allawi himself might 
disengage after such a bad showing.  On December 20 the 
leaders of the Sunni Arab Tawaffuq Front stormed to us that 
their relatively weak showing compared to the Shia Islamist 
List could only be the result of fraud.  They threatened 
not to participate in the next assembly if the election 
commission did not reverse the results.  Ambassador said we 
would urge the election commission and UN to take 
allegations of fraud seriously and to investigate 
thoroughly.  He cautioned them also not to slam the door on 
participation in the next government, as such participation 
would be the best way to protect their own interests.  (See 
septels for fuller readout of both Shia Islamist reactions 
and those from the Sunni Arab Tawaffuq list.) 
 
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Analysis 
-------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Under the calculations above, the Shia Alliance 
has done very well, while Ayad Allawi's National Iraqi List 
has performed much worse than it anticipated.  The National 
Iraqi List perceived Baghdad as its main base, and hoped 
for good results from Basrah too (see ref, for example). 
Instead, Allawi's list appears to be finishing third in 
Baghdad with less than 14 percent of the vote, much less 
than 30 percent they had anticipated the day after the 
election.  Allawi supporters had relied heavily on winning 
a substantial portion of their expected seats in Baghdad - 
instead it appears that they will only obtain 8 Baghdad 
seats.  Rather than Allawi eating into the vote for the 
Shia Alliance, it appears that Arab Sunnis ate into the 
vote for Allawi. 
 
¶6. (C) Giving this poor showing, it will be difficult for 
Allawi's National Iraqi List to garner the 40 seats they 
believed necessary for Ayad Allawi to become prime 
minister.  Speaking privately with the Ambassador December 
20, Tareq al-Hashemi, from the Sunni Arab Tawaffuq list, 
agreed that a coalition between the Kurds and Allawi list 
would be useful, but he doubted Allawi should be the leader 
of that coalition given his poor showing so far (see 
septel). 
 
¶7. (U) The IECI has yet to announce results for seven 
governorates with a combined 68 directly elected seats 
between them: 
 
Anbar - 9 seats 
Diyala - 10 seats 
Muthana - 5 seats 
Ninewa - 19 seats 
Qadissiyah - 8 seats 
Kirkuk - 9 seats 
Wasit - 8 seats 
 
¶8. (C) The Shia Alliance can be expected to pick almost all 
of the seats in Muthana, Qadissiyah, and Wasit, and win a 
few seats between Ninewa and Diyala to reach about 110 
directly elected seats.  The National Iraqi List can be 
expected to win a few seats in the remaining southern 
governorates, Anbar, Diyala, and Ninewa to maybe reach 
about 25 seats from the provinces.  The Sunni Tawaffuq 
likely will pick up the vast majority of seats in Anbar and 
Ninewa, as well as some in Diyala, to secure 35 - 40 seats. 
The Kurds will win the majority of seats in Kirkuk and some 
in Ninewa and Diyala to reach about 50 seats seats. 
 
¶9. (C) Compensatory seat distribution is still the wild 
card.  Current totals point to very few of the 45 
compensatory seats being allocated in a "compensatory 
fashion"; i.e., to parties that couldn't win a seat in the 
governorate, but that received enough votes nation wide to 
merit this special seat designation.  Barring this 
designation, the rest of the "compensatory" seats would be 
distributed proportionally to the big winners who win a 
threshold number of votes.  This may add to the Shia 
Alliance seat gains, and could give the Shia Coalition list 
close to 130 seats and make it possible for them to join 
with only the Kurds and reach the 2/3 parliament vote 
needed to name the next presidency council. 
KHALILZAD