"Looking at the partial results, it appears
that the Sistani list will have more than 50 percent and that Kurdish parties
will come second," said Sunni politician Saad Abdel Razzak.
"They should therefore share the posts of
president and prime minister between themselves."
Partial results announced on Monday showed that
the Shiite coalition backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had obtained
2,244,237 out of 4,366,843 votes counted, or 51.4 percent of ballots cast.
It could even improve this score when the rest
of the polling stations in remaining Shiite-dominated southern provinces are
counted, securing around 140 out of the National Assembly's 275 seats.
Meanwhile, a very high turnout in the northern
Kurdish areas also guarantees the joint ticket formed by the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistanand the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) a strong presence in
parliament and plum posts in the government.
With 1,075,534 votes, the Kurds are emerging as
the second political force in the country, ahead of the Iraqi List of incumbent
prime minister, Iyad Allawi.
More counting in the Kurdish province of Arbil
should ensure the Kurdish bloc retains its edge on challengers and secures
around a quarter of all seats in parliament.
"Discussions are under way in order to reach a
consensus on the distribution of posts in the executive and several scenarios
can be considered," said Abdul Razzak, a sociologist and member of elder
statesman Adnan Pachachi's party.
He believes the posts of president and prime
minister will not escape the Shiite and Kurdish winners, but the names of the
candidates vary depending on the combination.
Abdel Razzak predicts that PUK leader Jalal
Talabani will get one of the two top jobs.
The Shiites' premiership choice is Finance
Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. However, if they were to settle for the presidency,
Abdel Mahdi would be edged out by his boss in the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdelaziz Hakim, he said.
Such a deal would leave the minority Sunnis,
still reeling from the loss of power they wielded under Saddam Hussein, without
high-profile representation in the next executive.
But an expert on the Iraq political process
explains that the job of parliament speaker that the Sunnis would naturally be
granted under those circumstances, could be a very influential one in the
upcoming constitution-drafting phase.
"The constitution will be entrusted to a
committee including politicians from inside and outside parliament that would
allow for credible Sunni figures to be included in the process," he said on
condition of anonymity.
"But that would require a very efficient
management of the National Assembly, to ensure that the provisions of the
committee are not overruled by a parliament" dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
"I think the position of parliament speaker
will be a very important one. This person will have the responsibility of
channeling the debate, will have access to all the committees," the expert
explained.
Abdel Razzak says the makeup of the executive
will be "a package where all the posts in the presidency and the cabinet will be
shared out and there will be a lot of wrangling over key portfolios such as the
interior or the defence."
"Once all this has been agreed upon, the
parliament will gather to approve the line-up. It could take a few weeks," he
told AFP.
The Transitional Administrative Law which
serves as the country's interim constitution until a permanent one is drawn up,
stipulates that the appointment of the president and his two deputies has to be
approved by a two-thirds majority in parliament.
The presidential council subsequently has to
unanimously approve the choice of a prime minister, whose government line-up
then has to be okayed by a majority of MPs.
