No Surprises in Early Results For Iraqi Provincial Elections

The results of the local elections in Iraq, which took place on April 20, did not come as a surprise. Their initial results were within the range of expectations, even if they put forth new facts on the ground and revealed facts that will govern the relationship between the Iraqi parties in the months leading up to the general election in early 2014.

According to the preliminary results of the elections, the State of Law coalition, which is led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and which includes various parties that won in nine Shiite cities in southern Iraq, as well as in Baghdad, while the Mutahidoun bloc, led by parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, won in the two Sunni cities of Diyala and Salahuddin. These cities were allowed to vote after the ballot was postponed in Nineveh and Mosul, in addition to Kirkuk.

The figures of the results show that the coalition of the young cleric Ammar al-Hakim has scored a big win in six Shiite cities, knowing that he achieved low rates in the 2009 elections. These numbers also show that cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc remained at the same level and that the coalition of the secular politician Iyad Allawi and that of the Sunni politician who split from the Iraqiya List, Saleh al-Mutlaq, witnessed a decline.

But the success of Maliki’s bloc cannot be deemed as a political victory for him anyway, compared to the level of expectation that was set for the local elections, and the political project upon which he ran for the elections. This program provides for the achievement of a “major victory” in all Iraqi cities, so that he can rid the political game of those who, according to him, “obstruct his government work.” He certainly means the so-called Erbil-Najaf alliance, which includes Sunnis, Kurds, the Sadr movement and, to a further extent, the movement of Ammar al-Hakim.