Allawi woos minorities with call for unity

Iraq’s interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, reached out to the country’s ethnic and religious minorities on monday and called for a spirit of national unity in the wake of Sunday’s historic election.

In a televised address Allawi said the government would include groups that feared marginalisation under what is likely to be a Shia-dominated administration.

”The whole world is watching us,” he said. ”As we worked together yesterday to finish dictatorship, let us work together towards a bright future — Sunnis and Shias, Muslims and Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans.”

The prime minister’s first address since the election caught the sudden mood of optimism generated by the poll, but the crucial question of turnout by Arab Sunnis will remain unanswered for several days while ballots are counted.

CNN reported that in Salahuddin, the largely Sunni province which includes Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, turnout was less than 20%. A candidate on the Shi’ite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance List, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, echoed the call for unity. ”We reassure our brothers that any step Iraq takes must include all parts of Iraq. No one can be left out.”

Iraq has been basking in its incarnation as a democratic exemplar. World leaders have praised voters’ courage and talked up the implications.

”I think this is a thing that will set a good tone for the Middle East, and I am optimistic,” Jordan’s King Abdullah told CNN. ”People are waking up, [Arab] leaders understanding that they have to push reform forward.”

Other Arab leaders were more muted in their praise, but France, Germany and Russia, which led opposition to the invasion, welcomed the election as a step forward. Vladimir Putin said it was ”a step in the right direction”.

It could be next week before final results are known, but that did not stop Iraqis yesterday savouring the surprise of an election that passed more smoothly than expected.

About 260 attacks were recorded, including nine suicide bombings — one of the highest daily totals since the invasion in March 2003 — resulting in more than 40 deaths. The Hercules plane crash, which killed 10 British service personnel, was Britain’s deadliest single incident of the war.

American diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the insurgents ”were throwing inexperienced, discombobulated people at us to make a big splash, and that did not happen”.

But echoing warnings from Iraqi officials, they said there could be a backlash in the short term. ”If I were an insurgent I would be really bitterly disappointed at what happened. I certainly wouldn’t conclude I should surrender.,” said one.

On Monday night Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq condemned the elections as an ”American game”, according to an internet statement. ”We … will continue the jihad until the banner of Islam flutters over Iraq,” said the statement on an Islamist site. Four US marines died on Monday but there were no large attacks.

In the north some Kurdish parties said people were unable to vote in districts such as Sheikhan, Sinjar and Hamdaniya due to lack of ballot boxes and voting forms.

”As many as 180 000 people — the equivalent of eight seats in Parliament — were denied the right to vote by either the incompetency of the elections commission or the conspiracy of powers that be in Baghdad,” said Sadi Ahmed Pire, a senior official with the PUK party.

Hania Mufti of Human Rights Watch observed voting in five polling stations in the Kurdish self-rule area and said that she saw ”no major abuses”, but that there were reports of shortages of ballot forms.

Preliminary turnout in the town of Kirkuk, a prize contested between different ethnic groups, was said to be 88%, with the joint Kurdish slate said to be well ahead, with up to 55% of the vote. Turkoman parties were said to be second, while Arab parties were running a distant third.