Iraqi vote count so far shows cleric-backed Shi'ite list in lead

BAGHDAD -- As a post-election calm gave way to a burst of deadly attacks, Iraqi election officials yesterday released partial results in the ballot for a new national legislature that showed a slate of cleric-backed Shi'ite Muslim parties taking a strong lead.

The partial results from six provinces, including Baghdad and five heavily Shi'ite areas in the south, showed overwhelming majorities for the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition that is led by parties that back a strong role for Islam in politics and claims the support of Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The figures, while preliminary and accounting for only about 10 percent of the country's polling stations, left a top official of one of the leading Islamist parties so confident that he said the slate's leaders would try to prevent US-backed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi from keeping his job.

"He's had his chance," said Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, deputy to the leader of the Da'wa Party, interim Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari, who is a contender for the prime minister's slot. "We're here to give other people a chance."

The figures were released as violence surged in Iraq for the first time since the election on Sunday. News reports cited incidents that claimed at least 23 lives, including those of two US Marines killed in action in Anbar Province west of Baghdad. Twelve army recruits were killed south of Kirkuk after rebels ordered them off a bus and ordered two others to warn people not to sign up.

US and Iraqi officials had cautioned that it would be harder for Iraqi forces to cope with the day-to-day insurgency than it was on election day, when car traffic was shut down across the country.

Sh'ite parties have called for a harsher crackdown on insurgents and criticized Allawi for bringing in former members of the ousted Ba'ath Party to run the security forces.

According to the incomplete results, the Shi'ite-backed Alliance was outpolling the closest contender, Allawi's Iraqi List, by about 5 to 1 in five southern Shi'ite provinces that include the cities of Nasiriyah, Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniya, and Samawa. In what election officials called "mixed" areas of Baghdad and the surrounding province, the Alliance was leading Allawi's list by 350,069 votes to 140,364.

A lopsided victory for the Shi'ite Alliance, many of whose leaders have strong ties to Iran, could further alienate Sunni Muslims, whose turnout was much lower because of violence in areas plagued by the Sunni-led insurgency and because of calls for a boycott by some Sunni clerics.

It was too soon to project national results from the partial findings, which included a total of 1.6 million votes counted from about 10 percent of the nation's polling stations. The votes counted so far represent about 25 percent of the polling stations in Baghdad and 45 to 70 percent of polling stations in the other five provinces. No heavily Kurdish or Sunni Muslim provinces were included.

Still, the percentages rolling in for the Alliance were high enough to add credence to the slate's claim, based on tallies by its own poll observers, that it could win a simple majority in the 275-member national assembly.

Those claims jibe with observations from another party unaffiliated with the Shi'ite list, the Constitutional Monarchy party, whose poll watchers reported higher than expected totals for the Shi'ite list and lower numbers than expected for Allawi in some areas.

Sharif Ali, a relative of Iraq's deposed king and head of the promonarchy party, said that Allawi did not do well in Babil Province, directly south of Baghdad. He called the area "prime Iyad territory," a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite area with many former government officials -- the type of population that might have been expected to choose Allawi, a secular Shi'ite with a reputation for toughness.

Sharif Ali called the election "a Sistani tsunami."

"I think the Americans are in for a shock," he said, adding that they would one day realize, " 'We've got 150,000 troops here protecting a country that's extremely friendly to Iran and training their troops.' "

Kadhimi and other leaders of the parties in the Shi'ite list have promised to reach out to Sunnis, Kurds, and other groups. They note that two-thirds of the assembly must vote to name the president and two vice presidents, who in turn will name a prime minister and cabinet.

But the more seats the Alliance gains in the Assembly, the fewer allies they will need to win over among Allawi's group, the Kurds, and other groups to gather enough votes to control the government appointments.

Kadhimi said leaders of Da'wa and its main rival party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, were forming a committee to try to impose discipline over the diverse membership.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq also released results from eight of the 14 countries where Iraqi expatriates were allowed to vote.

In those countries, the United States, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, Syria, Jordan, and Australia, a total of 169,659 votes were cast.

The Shi'ite list won 44 percent of the vote, followed by 18 percent for a coalition of Kurdish parties, 12 percent for Allawi's list, and 8 percent for a coalition of Christian minority parties.

Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com.