Election 2010: Preliminary Poll Results Show Iraqi Premier in Narrow Lead

State of Law’s Stride to Victory?

After a much criticised, preliminary results for all 18 provinces came in yesterday, a week after the country’s landmark elections. Largely confirming earlier predictions and estimates, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition has fared well in seven provinces south of the capital, while the Iraqqiya list led by former interim premier Iyad Allawi is ahead north of Baghdad and south of the Kurdistan Region. Elsewhere, the Iraqi National Alliance does not appear to have lost too much ground since the January 2009 provincial elections—a victory of sorts for the grand Shi’a alliance which had feared more losses to Maliki’s list. In the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdistan Alliance—comprised of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—was in the lead, challenged by opposition list, Gorran (Change).

With the much-anticipated results from Baghdad, which has 70 seats designated in the 325-seat parliament, showing Maliki’s State of Law ahead, the premier’s lead appears relatively secured. State of Law has thus added Baghdad to the list of six other provinces: oil-rich Basra, Babil, Muthanna, and Wasit as well as the Shi’a religious capitals Najaf, Karbala. Cementing the gains made during the 2009 provincial elections, State of Law has built on its Shi’a dominated and southern constituency. This is despite Maliki’s best efforts to strengthen State of Law’s appeal to Sunnis as a cross-sectarian nationalist coalition, as the lists popularity in north of Baghdad, south of Kurdistan is extremely weak.

Iyad Allawi’s Iraqqiya list on the other hand has secured a clearly Sunni constituency, while also making possibly significant inroads in the south as well as in the capital. The list is in the lead in several restive provinces: Ninewa, Salahaddin, Diyala, Anbar, and surprisingly in the oil-rich disputed province of Kirkuk where yesterday it was said hold a slim lead over the Kurdistan Alliance with over 60% of the votes tallied. For the Kurdistan Alliance an Iraqqiya win in Kirkuk will certainly be viewed with apprehension and suspicion. The Kurds had largely expected to take Kirkuk—a much-needed victory for successfully negotiating the incorporation of parts of the province into the Kurdistan Region. Meanwhile, the grand Shi’a alliance, National Iraqi Alliance was ahead in Dhi Qar, Maysan, and Qadissiya.

Outlook and Implications

Not so Fast…

Conclusive analysis at this point would be premature. However, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn and the results are significantly more fragmented than they appear at first glance. To begin with, State of Law does not appear to be winning with wide margins in each of the provinces where the list is in the lead. For example, in Baghdad, it appears to be ahead with less than 40% of the vote, followed by narrow margins by NIA and Iraqqiya. Similarly, in Babel, State of Law’s victory is closely followed by NIA. It also appears that it probably has not secured more than 50% of the vote in any single province aside from Basra. Furthermore, the list has fared badly in central and northern provinces where it is not in the lead, apparently with less than 10% in Ninewa, Salahaddin, and critically in Anbar—the province which has become the symbol of the Sunni street. Iraqqiya’s sweep of Diyala and Anbar and apparent lead in Kirkuk are significant for the coalition which at the onset appeared a divided challenger to State of Law. The premier’s list has thus failed significantly in increasing its popularity with the Sunni constituency, raising the risk of the list being viewed in the future as a Shi’a list even though Maliki pulled out his Islamic Dawa from the former Shi’a bloc the United Iraqi Alliance, with the purpose of creating a cross-sectarian and secular agenda.