Shia Alliance Wins Iraq Elections

An alliance of Shia parties won 128 of Iraq's 275 parliamentary seats in the country's first democratic elections - 10 short of a majority, it was confirmed today.

As expected, the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance won the most seats in the December 15 elections. It will now need to seek a coalition in order to form a government.

The Kurdish bloc won 53 seats, and two of the main Sunni groups won 55 seats in total. Commentators said that was a much better showing than Sunni groups had managed in last January's interim elections.

The minority Sunni Arabs largely boycotted that vote, and major efforts were made to try to encourage their engagement in December.

Officials believe greater Sunni involvement in the political process could help reduce the Sunni-dominated insurgency in Iraq.

Results confirmed today showed the two main Sunni Arab groups - the Accordance Front and the National Dialogue Front - had secured 44 and 11 seats respectively in last month's election. Some other Sunni candidates won seats on other tickets.

Overall, Sunni Arabs will now have a bigger voice in the national assembly than in the outgoing one, in which they only had 17 seats.

The secular list - headed by the former prime minister, Iyad Allawi - won 25 seats, down from the 40 it had held in the outgoing parliament.

The results were announced by Safwat Rasheed, an official from Iraq's Electoral Commission, at a news conference. Parties have two days to appeal before they are certified as definitive, and some Sunni politicians have made allegations of fraud.

Security was tightened in some Sunni provinces and in the capital, Baghdad, to coincide with the announcement of the results.