Kurdish Ticket Makes Gains in Iraq Voting (Allawi now in 3rd place)

[arcos]

Kurdish Ticket Makes Gains in Iraq Voting

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Kurdish ticket pulled into second place ahead of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's candidates in Iraq (news - web sites)'s national election after votes were released Monday from the Kurdish self-governing area of the north. Insurgents struck Iraq's security forces with suicide bombs and mortar fire, killing more than 30 people.


First election returns from the Sunni heartland — including Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit — confirmed on Monday that many Sunnis stayed away from ballot box, leaving the field to Shiite and Kurdish candidates. A Shiite-dominated ticket backed by the Shiite clergy leads among the 111 candidate lists, with a final tally of last week's election for a 275-member National Assembly expected by week's end.


Allawi, who favors strong ties with the United States, had hoped to emerge as a compromise choice for prime minister, but the Shiite cleric-backed ticket say they want one of their own for the top job.


Kurds, estimated at 15-20 percent of the population, gave most of their votes to a joint ticket made up of the two major Kurdish parties, which was in second with about 24 percent of the votes reported as of Monday. One of the Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani, has announced his candidacy for the presidency.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050208/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[merwin]

1. This is only temporary... i'm expecting Allawi to come back to second.

[mazzarro]

3. How is Allawi going to do that?

Pull a bu*sh on the election result?

[teryang]

2. The election was not democratic but sectarian in design

The country is divided and weak just as intended by the American designers of the election.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

4. They're just stalling before they pull a rabbit out of their ass

And Allawi wins--They're waiting for a good distraction of some sort, then they'll unveil their secret "winner"-->meet the new boss, same as the old boss-->

[pinniped]

5. Smart money's on Allawi-Puppet.

Ain't that a !@#$%^& surprise.

--Allawi, who favors strong ties with the United States--

[Moderator]

6. Duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1218563