Via the NYT: Religious Groups Take Early Lead in Iraqi Ballots

Early voting results announced by Iraqi electoral officials on Monday, with nearly two-thirds of the ballots counted, indicated that religious groups, particularly the main Shiite coalition, had taken a commanding lead. The secular coalition led by Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister, had won only meager support in crucial provinces where it had expected to do well, including Baghdad.

[…]

The preliminary results accounted for more than 90 percent of votes cast in 11 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. About 7 million ballots have been counted, of an estimated turnout of 11 million in the vote on Thursday for a full, four-year government, electoral officials said.

While I did read some ruminations that perhaps the secular list would do better than last time, the above is hardly a surprise.

Also not surprising (via Reuters): Sunnis cry foul over Iraq vote

An interesting tidbit (back to the NYT piece:

Another prominent secular candidate, Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favorite, won less than a half of 1 percent of the vote in Baghdad, possibly denying him a seat in the Council of Representatives.

Via WaPo we also find:

Moqtada Sadr, a rebellious Shiite cleric who had been coaxed to join the Shiite list, appeared to have fielded successful candidates in a separate slate as well. A list associated with his Mahdi Army militia came in fourth in Baghdad with enough votes to likely guarantee him a seat in parliament.

Given that, as Matthew Shugart noted the other day in looking at the Iraqi constitution, there is no super-majority requirement for government formation, this is setting up to be, unlike the provisional government, a government run by the religious Shi’ite party, the UIA (the United Iraqi Alliance). The real question will become whether the UIA members are unified once in parliament for the purposes of selecting a President and a Prime Minister. There is the possibility of post-election coalition formation, but it is clear that the UIA holds the upper hand. In the Iraqi context a pure majoritarian system is going to spell trouble. As I wrote at TCS back in June of 2024:

Any new government must take into consideration these cleavages, and especially must avoid any situation where one group is allowed to have substantial power over the others. Democracy, depending on its design, can create a situation where the majority can tyrannize the minority (or, indeed, vice versa) — such conditions must be avoided, or breakdown of the new state will result.

(side note: I hate the title they gave to that column, but such is life).