Just like the previous days since the preliminary results of the elections were announced, this day brought some important events and developments and here I’ll try to summarize the most important ones here...
As everyone can easily see, Maram has rapidly grown in size and number of participating parties; now Maram is 50+ parties strong with a total representation of some 80 seats in the parliaments according to the results announced so far.
The parties within this bloc has also chosen a negotiator and a semiofficial leader for them; Allawi and they have also signed a “charter of honor” that requests from all participants to remain under the umbrella of this bloc and not separate from it after the parliament is formed.
This has apparently inspired the UIA-who feel threatened by the growth of this bloc-inspired them to unite their lines even more. The parties within the UIA are putting the final touches on an agreement to turn the UIA from an alliance into one political body under unified leadership.
The new political body will have a new unified platform and new regulations to which all components must adhere.
The election commission had a press conference today where its senior officials dismissed the accusations directed at them and stressed that violations weren’t big enough to justify a rerun but they also stated that the results of certain voting stations in Baghdad, Mosul, Diyala, Kirkuk, Erbil and Anbar will be ignored in the count and that investigations are underway in Basra and Babil.
This morning, al-Sabah published semifinal estimations of seat-allocations, it went like this:
UIA: 130 seats.
Accord Front: 42 seats.
Kurdish alliance: 52 seats.
Iraqi list (Allawi): 25 seats.
Dialogue Front (al-Mutlaq): 11 seats.
Islamic Union of Kurdistan: 5 seats.
Reconciliation and Liberation Front (Mish’an al-Juboori): 3 seats.
Each of Mithal al-Alusi, Risalioon (Sadrists), Rafidain (Christians) and Turkmen Front won 1 seat.
3 remaining seats will go to other religious/ethnic minorities, probably Mendaeen, Ezedyeen.
The preparations for the summit meeting between leaders of the four major blocs that we mentioned yesterday are still underway. Tariq al-Hashimi leader of the Islamic Party said there are “technical difficulties” causing the delay in holding this meeting while a secretary of president Talabani attributed the delay to Talabani’s wish to meet the three other leaders-Allawi, al-Hakeem and al-Dulaimi-separately before the four can sit at one table.
Meanwhile, there are more meetings at lower levels taking place inside and outside Iraq; Khalaf al-Ilayan from the Accord Front is in Cairo to meet Amr Mousa and in Abu Dhabi/UAE, Adnan Pachachi (former GC member and a leading member of Allawi’s list) met Muwafaq al-Ruba’i from the UIA, an unnamed representative of the Kurdish alliance and Mohammed Bahr al-Iloom (former GC member and respected moderate Shia cleric and now independent) the four men met in Abu Dhabi to discuss the latest developments concerning the elections and the shape of the government.
Rallies also continued, today there was another big rally in Salahiddin province where thousands of people demonstrated in support of Maram and in rejection of the election results.
Unfortunately, not all peaceful rallies are tolerated; Akba has a report on a sad incident in Mosul.
Anyway, the worst possible outcome of this struggle isn’t going to be thick black, the same way that the best outcome isn’t expected to be pure while; it’s all shades of gray and we hope we can end up with the lightest one possible.
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