Iraqi Elections - Birthing Democracy

The election results are out in Iraq with not one of the three major ethnicities gaining a majority.  The voter turnout was 58%, representing 8.5 million votes.

The breakdown of the vote and their respective alliances (from the Economist):

• United Iraqi Alliance Shi'a Islamic parties dominated by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (140 - 50.9% of seats, 48.2% of total vote)
• Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan Two separate Kurdish parties joined together (75 - 27.3%, 25.7%)
• Iraqi List Secular Shia including Interim PM Iyad Allawi (40 - 14.5%, 13.8%)
• The Iraqis Sunni Party led by interim Pres. Ghazi al-Yawar (5 - 1.8%, 1.8%)
• Iraqi Turkmen Front 1995 Political Party centered around Kirkuk (3 - 1.0% 1.1%)
• National Independent Cadres and Elite Shi'ite Party associated with Moqtada al-Sadr (3 - 1.0%, 0.8%)
• Other (9 - 3.3% 8.5%)

Now is the time for political maneuvering as the different parties work towards building a governing coalition, selecting government appointments and cabinet positions and writing a constitution.

The constitution will require two-thirds approval of the voters to be ratified, which will require all of the ethnic groups to strike a balanced compromise such that the elected officials will be able to convince their constituents of its importance.

It is an amazing time in Iraq.  It will be very exciting to watch how they build their democracy and to what extent the major party will or will not bring Islam into the constitution and ultimately into the ruling government.

UPDATE: Several have commented by email or on the site, that the above description of the United Iraqi Alliance not having a majority seems odd, given that they have over 50% of the seats.  However, the total vote as listed here includes parties that received votes but not enough to reach the threshold to retain a seat.  When these parties and votes are tallied, the United Iraqi Alliance has 48.2% of the votes.  This requires a coalition government to reach a 50% plus one vote threshold for naming a Prime Minister.  Hopefully this helps clear up the confusion.  I have added the actual percentages in red above.

UPDATE 2: Patrick Ruffini has a far superior map of the voter turnout that he prepared in excel compared to mine.  I am impressed.  Check out his analysis as well. (2.16.05)

Comments

[CleverNameHere]

Am I missing something? If the Sistani party has 140 of 275 seats, isn't that a majority?