Kurds set to hold balance of power in Iraq

Mariam Fam, Baghdad

None of the 111 candidate lists is likely to end up with the two-thirds majority needed to make key decisions, so much of the face of the new Iraq at least in the coming transition period will be moulded by alliances and deals.

Partial returns point to a victory by the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shi'ite-dominated coalition tacitly endorsed by top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Leaders of the alliance, who have likely won the biggest bloc of seats in the incoming 275-member National Assembly, are now focusing on whom to back for prime minister.

The assembly will elect a largely ceremonial president and two deputies, who in turn will choose the prime minister. The assembly then ratifies the choice.

US-backed interim prime minister Mr Allawi, who leads a rival ticket, is believed to be seeking to hold onto the position. However, partial returns show his party trailing both the Shi'ite ticket and a coalition of major Kurdish parties.

The United Iraqi Alliance has said it wants the prime minister's job, and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani has announced his candidacy for president. The Shi'ite coalition is made up of Shi'ite religious parties and other political groups that include some Sunnis and Kurds.

Meanwhile, turbaned men in clerical robes huddle with politicians in Western business suits, hammering out the future of Iraq in backroom deal-making. The political horse-trading has begun even before final results of the January 30 national elections are announced. Francis Brooke, an adviser to United Iraqi Alliance member Ahmad Chalabi, said that Mr Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress party, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, of the Dawa party, and Abdel Abdul-Mahdi, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, are all seeking the alliance's nomination for the position of prime minister.

However, the alliance's key strength (its diversity) is perhaps also its weakness.

Mr Abdul-Mahdi and Mr al-Jaafari come from Islamic-oriented parties with close links to Iran. Mr Chalabi is a secular-minded Shi'ite and former ally of the Pentagon who fell out of favour with Washington.

The alliance's diversity increased its appeal beyond Iraq's religious Shi'ite community, but because the ticket brought together competing parties, some predict the coalition could fray after the National Assembly convenes. Much depends on whether the alliance votes as a bloc and seeks outside allies, possibly the Kurds, to beef up its dominance in the chamber.

The question of who gets the presidency is also likely to emerge as a point of contention. Ghazi al-Yawer, the current interim president and a Sunni Arab, has said he expected the position would go to a Sunni Arab, but Mr al-Yawer's ticket is trailing in the polls. Some Sunnis stayed away from the polls after the Sunni militants who drive the insurgency threatened violence and others called for a boycott to protest holding elections under "foreign occupation".

The Kurds who so far are running second could prove to be a critical factor in the deal-making.