Word: iraqiya
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...Despite the secular-nationalist orientation of both al-Maliki's and Allawi's slates, the election results showed a familiar sectarian split. Most Sunnis voted for Allawi's Iraqiya list, while the Shi'ite vote was split between al-Maliki's State of Law slate and that of the INA, representing the Shi'ite Islamist parties that had put al-Maliki in power. If al-Maliki could mend the rift in the Shi'ite vote and cut a deal with the INA (which won 70 seats), that combination alone would put him just four seats shy of a majority...
...Sunnis are having none of it. Having boycotted the 2005 election, they participated en masse this time, handing Allawi what they consider to be a clear victory. Some leading members of his bloc have warned that violence would be the consequence if the Iraqiya list were denied what they consider to be their right to lead the government. Iraq's Sunnis have been suspicious of the Shi'ite-led government of al-Maliki, not without reason, and there has been an acute sense of betrayal among the former insurgents who joined the Sunni Awakening, which facilitated the success...
Once seen as an American puppet, Iyad Allawi is the new Comeback Kid of Iraqi politics. The results of the general election announced Friday, March 26, show that Allawi's secular Iraqiya block has won 91 seats in the 325-seat Iraqi parliament - well short of a majority, but two more than its nearest rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law slate...
...across traditional fault lines. The big parties put forward diverse coalitions preaching national unity, even if each retained a core identity well known to voters: Maliki's State of Law coalition ran on a law-and-order platform but drew primarily from a moderate Shi'ite base; Allawi's Iraqiya ran on a similar platform but ran strongest among Sunnis. But even if Iraq's politicians pretended to have outgrown identity politics, voters either didn't get the memo or saw through the spin, and voted largely by ethnicity and sect. Allawi won in majority Sunni areas; Maliki...
...Baghdad government, or whether power is devolved to the regions, especially the Shi'ite-dominated south and the Kurdish north. Those pushing centralization include Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite dominated State of Law coalition, and the ideologically similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq - and an alliance of Shi'te parties led by Ammar al-Hakim, Ahmed Chalabi and Moqtada al-Sadr among others - which critics claim is bent...