The Shia alliance was officially declared the winner of the Iraqi general election today.
The United Iraqi Alliance was allocated 140 seats in the new National Assembly after the nation's electoral commission certified the results of the January 30th poll.
The allocation sets the stage for the first meeting of the new assembly, which will be in power for 10 months and draft a new constitution.
The first order of business will be to elect a president and two vice presidents to largely ceremonial positions. The president and vice presidents will then name a prime minister, an appointment that will be worked out in advance by the largest parties in the National Assembly.
The commission first announced the election results on Sunday, saying United Iraqi Alliance had taken 48 per cent of the vote, the Kurdish alliance 26 per cent, with interim premier Mr Ayad Allawi's party trailing with only 14 per cent.
But after the votes of the 99 parties that did not make it into the parliament were subtracted, the seats were allocated according to this narrower vote count.
Mr Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a former exile and senior member of the Shia alliance which won last month's historic election, told reporters that talks over who gets which jobs will take "a couple more days".
Even though the United Iraqi Alliance has a majority of seats in the assembly it needs a two-thirds majority to select the president and two vice presidents, who will in turn choose a prime minister who will run the day-to-day government.
The premier will have to be approved by the assembly. For that, the alliance will need to form a coalition with other parties and is expected to link up with the independence-minded Kurds in northern Iraq.
AP