IRAQ’S ELECTION commission yesterday announced a 24-hour postponement of the release of preliminary results of Sunday’s parliamentary election.
The commission said the delay was due to the need to combine results from voting in the provinces with tallies from voters living in Iraq outside their home communities and refugees living abroad in 16 countries where they were given the opportunity to vote.
Sarko Osman, a candidate for Goran, or the “change” movement, in the northern Kurdish province of Sulaimaniya, confirmed that the process of counting all the votes should be over today.
However, he said Goran’s observers at polling stations and counting centres had provided some results in the crucial Kurdish regional race.
“In Sulaimaniya Goran’s share is considerably lower than my expectations,” he said.
Goran, strong in urban areas, says the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and its ally, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), are ahead in the countryside, where tribal ties to the traditional PUK and KDP leaders are strong.
The most dramatic development is the likelihood that the PUK will emerge with six seats and the KDP with two out of 12 in the race in Kirkuk, where Kurds seek to gain power in spite of vehement opposition from local ethnic Arab and Turkoman communities which are already disputing the result.
While a strong showing in Kirkuk could boost the Kurds’ bargaining power in Baghdad during negotiations over the formation of the government, the PUK and KDP will be under pressure to deliver the popular Kurdish demand for a referendum in the disputed Kirkuk (Tamim) province to decide whether it should be incorporated into the Kurdish region.
“After the PUK lost seats to Goran in last year’s Kurdish parliamentary election, the PUK focused on Kirkuk,” Mr Osman said.
“[Iraqi president and PUK leader Jalal] Talabani made many visits to Kirkuk because he knew he would lose in Sulaimaniya [to Goran]. He knew also that he could not win any seat in Irbil [the KDP stronghold].”
Mr Osman added that, due to the PUK’s loss of control of its traditional Sulaimaniya base, “Mr Talabani’s position has been weakened in Baghdad”. This is certain to affect his chances of being re-elected president.
On election day Mr Talabani, who has served since 2005, said he would stand again for the post if asked. But yesterday outgoing vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi of the secular Iraqiya list called for the elevation of an Arab to the presidency. The Iraqiya list, headed by former premier Iyad Allawi, appears to have garnered the second-largest number of seats in the 325-member national assembly.
This election “has changed the political map of Iraq”, said Mr Osman. “I think everything is going to change. All Iraqis are waiting to see what will happen.”
To meet the challenges ahead, he said the Kurds, a minority of perhaps 17 per cent, had to get together and “make a plan”. He added that the next four years would be different from the last four years as Iraq was “much stronger” as a country.