Political leaders in Iraq and abroad focused on Saturday on the shape of a government for the next four years, mulling how to include Sunni elements and tackle the nation’s endemic violence.
Though the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq cautioned that ballots were still being counted and official results would not be available for some time, preliminary estimates indicated polarised results similar to the last elections.
The religious Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance, according to estimates from commission employees and party officials, appeared to have swept the largely Shi’ite south again, while the Kurdish Alliance had an apparently commanding lead in the north.
The current government, an alliance of the religious Shi’ites and Kurds, took months to form and has been accused of sidelining the country’s disaffected Sunni minority.
“The Sunnis have to feel that they’ve got a voice in the future government” and will be protected from those who “might seek revenge” for Saddam Hussein’s abuses, said United States President George Bush on Friday.
Facing anaemic poll numbers at home over his Iraq policy, Bush has trumpeted Thursday’s legislative election as a victory for the Iraqi people and US policy in Iraq and is hoping for the rapid formation of a strong government.
According to his spokesperson, Bush has contacted the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait and asked them to help Iraq set up its new government.
“It’s going to take some time to get the government in place, but all of us want to do what we can to assist the Iraqi people as they move forward on forming their government,” said Scott McClellan.
US officials felt that much of the momentum from the January elections for the transitional assembly was squandered over the inter-party squabbling and horse-trading that ensued and delayed the formation of a new government for two and a half months.
“The newly elected leaders should come together quickly and build bridges for national unity and establish an effective, broad-based government that Iraqis across ethnic and sectarian lines have confidence in,” US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq said in a statement.
The importance of swiftly setting up a new government was emphasised by the UN Security Council which called for “the rapid formation of a representative government” and stressed “the importance of inclusiveness, dialogue and national unity as Iraq’s political development moves forward”.
The elections were remarkably peaceful, with only a few deaths reported, but ongoing instability in the country was underlined by a mortar attack on Friday on a school used as a polling station that killed four children playing football and an Iraqi soldier.
Three mortars were fired on the school in the western Iraqi town of Barwana, near Haditha in the restive al-Anbar province, the day after elections as soldiers were cleaning up the school in anticipation of a resumption of classes after the holidays called for elections.
The western province of al-Anbar, which has been a centre of the largely Sunni insurgency, had been the focus of several joint US-Iraqi military operations ahead of elections.
In an interview on Friday, Bush admitted that the aftermath of elections would not solve the problem of the insurgency in Iraq and violence would continue.
“I think if we have a policy of zero violence, it won’t be met, but the policy of getting the Iraqis in the fight and marginalizing those who are trying to stir up trouble will be effective,” he said.
The White House said Bush would cap a month-long public relations offensive to revive flagging US support for the war with an address late on Sunday from the Oval Office.