IRAQ: Iraq's Shia alliance won a slim majority of seats in the new National Assembly, the Electoral Commission said yesterday, securing them power after decades of domination by minority Sunnis.
Based on final results from last month's election, the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of mainly Shia Islamist religious parties, was allocated 140 seats in the 275-seat National Assembly, the Electoral Commission said.
Seventy-five seats went to a Kurdish bloc that polled the second-highest number of votes in the January 30th ballot. Many Sunni Arabs failed to vote, through a combination of boycott and fear of Sunni insurgents battling the US-backed administration.
An alliance leader seen as a potential prime minister said Sunnis must now take part in drafting a constitution, however.
Otherwise, some fear, sectarian tension could become civil war.
A two-thirds majority is required to approve the appointment of a president and two vice-presidents, the next step in the electoral process. The Shia alliance and Kurdish bloc are expected to work together to form such a majority.
The three-person presidency will name a prime minister and a cabinet. The alliance's Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is front-runner to be prime minister, said the nomination had yet to be decided and that talks on the top jobs would take "a couple more days".
A Swedish-Iraqi politician kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with beheading pleaded with Sweden's royal family, the Vatican and Muslim leaders to help secure his release.
In a video aired yesterday, Minas al-Yousifi (59) said: "I appeal to Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, His Holiness the Pope, world Christian parties and the Association of Iraqi Muslim Clerics ... to work towards freeing me."