Shias Secure Narrow Majority in Iraq

Iraq's clergy-backed Shia coalition secured a narrow parliamentary majority yesterday when the electoral commission certified results from last month's election.

The United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Shia Muslims tacitly backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shia cleric, won 140 of the 275 seats in the national assembly.

It won 48% of the vote, but took slightly more than half the seats because dozens of tiny parties missed the threshold of votes to qualify for representation.

A Kurdish bloc won 75 seats and a group led by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, 40 seats. The Shias will have to make deals with one or both of these two to secure the two-thirds majority needed for important decisions.

The assembly will appoint a president and two vice-presidents, who will appoint a prime minister and cabinet. The government will be responsible for security and reconstruction, the assembly for drafting a constitution. The draft will be voted on in a referendum before a fresh election in December.

The Shia coalition is scheduled to hold a secret ballot today to vote on its candidate for prime minister. It is a race between Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 58, a secular, moderate leader of a religious party with ties to Iran, and Ahmed Chalabi, 58, the secular leader of a much smaller party which was once favoured by the Pentagon.

The Kurdish bloc has reportedly agreed to support the Shias' candidate in return for the (largely ceremonial) post of president. It would be the first time a Kurd was the head of state of a major Arab country.

A group calling itself Martyr of al-Isawy Brigades released a video yesterday showing a kidnapped Swede of Iraqi descent, Ibrahim al-Yousifi, appealing to the Pope and the king of Sweden to help secure his release.