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Viewing cable 05BAGHDAD5065, PRELIMINARY RESULTS POINT TO BIG SHIA ALLIANCE
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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin |
---|---|---|---|---|
05BAGHDAD5065 | 2005-12-20 14:12 | 2011-08-30 01:44 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Baghdad |
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.)
--------
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