Alawi takes slim lead over Malika in Iraq vote

Times:

Ayad Allawi, the former Iraqi Prime Minister, took a narrow lead last night in parliamentary elections that seem set to herald months of political deadlock.

With 80 per cent of votes counted, Mr Allawi, a secular Shia, was ahead by 9,000 votes. He appears to have won five provinces and Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, has taken seven.

Even if he wins, Mr Allawi faces formidable obstacles to taking power. His Iraqiya bloc is projected to win 87 seats in the 325-member parliament, exactly the same as Mr al-Maliki’s State of Law Alliance. Both will have to find coalition partners. This should favour Mr al-Maliki, who is a more attractive partner for the Kurds and the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition of mostly Shia religious groups.

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There is much more.

The NY Times reports that the Sadr gang has made inroads in the vote.

The followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who led the Shia insurgency against the American occupation, have emerged as Iraq’s equivalent of Lazarus in elections last week, defying ritual predictions of their demise and now threatening to realign the nation’s constellation of power.

Their apparent success in the March 7 vote for parliament — perhaps second only to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as the largest Shiite bloc — underscores a striking trend in Iraqi politics: a collapse in support for many former exiles who collaborated with the United States after the 2003 invasion. Although rivals disparaged the Sadrists’ electoral campaign, documents and interviews show an unprecedented discipline that has thrust the group to the brink of perhaps its greatest political influence in Iraq.

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I think both Alawi and Maliki ca agree on opposition to the Sadr bloc. The ties to Iran and the religious bigotry make this bloc a that does not play well with others. If they were in charge it would mean the loss of substantial US support for Iraq. I still think Alawi would be the best leader for Iraq. I see no reason why he could not work with the Kurds as suggested by the Times story.