Juan Cole - 12/17/05

Religious Shiite Coalition Sweeping South;
Allawi's Showing Weak

Al-Zaman [Ar.]/ AFP: 10-11 million of Iraq's 15 million potential voters came out on Thursday, according to al-Zaman. Of Iraqis abroad, 320,000 voted (a relatively small proportion of those eligible).

The Kurdistan Islamic Union is said to have gotten 140,000 votes in three Kurdish cities. This party's workers had been being physically attacked in Dohuk before the elections by activists from Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, but they seem likely to get some seats. Presumably Kurdish Islamists will tend to vote with the Sunni Arab religious coalition, and both of them may find some common ground with the fundamentalist Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.