By Dexter Filkins
The New York Times, 28 December 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 27 - Iraqi political leaders on Tuesday began what are expected to be protracted negotiations to form a "national unity" government made up of Iraq's main sectarian and ethnic groups.
Abdul Aziz Hakim, the head of the Shiite coalition that is expected to capture the largest share of votes that were cast in the parliamentary election on Dec. 15, traveled to the northern city of Erbil to meet with Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party. On Wednesday, Mr. Hakim is expected to met with Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president and head of the other large Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Those meetings are to be followed with discussions between the Kurdish leaders and at least two other groups: the Iraqi Consensus Front, a coalition of mostly Sunni political parties; and the National Democratic Rally, a group of secular parties led by Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister. Together, the five parties were expected to capture an overwhelming majority of the votes cast.
Iraqi officials said the Iraqi leaders are hoping to form a government that would be supported by most of those elected to the parliament, the National Assembly, and include representatives of all the major Iraqi parties. Such an outcome is strongly favored by the United States.
Preliminary election totals suggest that the Shiite collation will emerge as the largest single bloc in the 275-seat Assembly, though it will probably fall short of a majority. Owing to the complex rules governing the formation of a government, something close to a two-thirds majority will be needed for a coalition to assume power.
The Iraqi election commission is expected to announce final vote totals by the end of the week.
The negotiations come at a tense time. Preliminary results from the voting have incited anger among a number of Iraqi leaders, especially Sunnis, who complained that widespread fraud had tilted the election in favor of the Shiite alliance. Iraqi and American officials are especially worried about alienating the Sunnis, whose inclusion in the new government is considered vital in helping to marginalize the guerrilla insurgency.
American and Iraqi officials say they would like at least some of the Sunni parties to be included in a new government. They have expressed concern that the Shiite and the Kurdish parties, who are expected to win more than half of the seats in the National Assembly, would either leave the Sunnis out of the new government completely, or bring in the Sunnis only as a secondary partner.
"We will be working on closing the gaps between the different parliamentary blocs," said Foad Masoum, a senior leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
There were signs on Tuesday that the good feelings that had spread in the wake of the large Sunni turnout on Dec. 15 were rapidly dissipating. In Baghdad, several thousand mostly Sunni voters gathered to protest the results of the election and what many said had been widespread fraud on behalf the Shiite coalition.
The demonstration, which also included supporters of Mr. Allawi, was the latest in a number of protests that appeared to be part of an orchestrated effort to gather more Sunni seats in the Assembly than had been won at the polls.
Saleh Mutlak, the leader of the Iraqi National Trend, a Sunni-dominated party, has made the most sweeping allegations of voter fraud. In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Mutlak said that Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties had intimidated voters, destroyed ballots and stuffed some polling centers with more ballots than there were voters.
Some of the worst fraud, Mr. Mutlak said, had occurred in Diyala Province, where, he said, Kurdish militiamen had threatened some Arab voters and chased others from the polling places. In the mixed Arab-Kurdish city of Mosul, he said, Kurdish militiamen had prevented many Iraqi Arabs from voting.
But Mr. Mutlak seemed to hold scant faith that his allegations would be heard. Witnesses were afraid to come forward, he said, and the members of the Iraqi Independent Elections Commission seemed too close to the political parties to act fairly.
Moreover, Mr. Mutlak said he had struck an agreement with the Iraqi Consensus Front to coordinate their positions in any negotiations over entering a new government. Like many Iraqis, Mr. Mutlak said he worried over the increasingly sectarian nature of Iraqi politics.
"If this country goes sectarian, this is the end of Iraq," Mr. Mutlak said. "We are in a disaster."
On Tuesday, near Karbala, officials said they had discovered a mass grave containing the remains of dozens of people killed during an uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991. Officials said workers had been installing a sewer network and stumbled across what appeared to be about 150 bodies, including those of many women and children.
Khalid Al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.
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Citation: Dexter Filkins. "Iraqi Parties Try to Lay Foundation for Broad Coalition," The New York Times, 28 December 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/international/middleeast/28iraq.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1135787824-XikdBXcK71cxfmUaYAvVdA
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