Iraq 2005

[Harry Hayfield]

United Iraqi Alliance: 128 seats
Kurdistan Alliance: 53 seats
Iraqi Accord Front: 44 seats
Iraqi National List: 25 seats
Iraqi Front for National Dialogue: 11 seats
Others: 14

Winning Line: 138 seats
United Iraqi Alliance 10 short of an overall majority

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting results; do you know who the "others" are?

[Harry Hayfield]

Sorry, that's how the info was published on BBC News Online

[minionofmidas]

Results are not yet on the Iraqi Electoral Commission's website. From the Spiegel, I get 5 of these 14 others for that Kurdish Islamist opposition grouping.

[M]

IFND- is that Chalabi's list? Or is he among the others?

I would guess that the Assyrian and Turkoman minorities have 1-3 legislators each.

EDIT: IFND is a smaller Sunni list. Chalabi's party did not win a seat, though I believe he has been appointed to the significant Ministry of Oil anyway.

[Mr. Morden]

Iraq the Model lists the complete set of results, including which parties are included in "others":

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/01/final-results.html

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Where are the commies? All the parties I see on that link are either theocrats, ethnic based or parties whose only platform basically is "we're not theocrats".

BTW, I wonder if all the right wingers who are such big fans of the UIA are aware that they contain the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Where are the commies? All the parties I see on that link are either theocrats, ethnic based or parties whose only platform basically is "we're not theocrats".

Ran as part of Allawi's list IIRC

[Mr. Morden]

IIRC, the Communist Party joined up with Allawi's list for this election.  Basically, just about all the most "liberal" (in the classical sense) parties, those that were attempting to be pan-Iraqi rather than sectarian, joined together into one list, with Allawi as their spokesman, since he's their most recognizable face.  (Only exception was Chalabi's list, since there's a lot of bad blood between Allawi and Chalabi.)  That's why it was such a shock when preliminary results suggested this list was doing so poorly.  These results do kind of put to rest the idea that there's some kind of shared Iraqi political identity.  Everyone was voting for sectarian parties.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well the UIA has all sorts of groups under its banner as well, including such wonderful folks like Iraqi Hezbollah as said above and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution In Iraq. I'm quite excited about those folks taking over [/sarcasm]

[Mr. Morden]

One other thing about the results posted at ITM.  By my count, the total popular vote share of the top three lists was:

UIA (Shiite) 43%
Kurdistan Alliance 23%
Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) 16%

But the actual distribution of seats was more like:

UIA 47%
KA 19%
IAF 16%

So, OK, this is a bit of a simplification, but at first glance this makes it look like the Kurds had the highest turnout (since their larger share of the vote turned into fewer seats), the Shiites had the lowest turnout, and the Sunnis were in the middle.  Quite a turnaround from a year ago, when Sunni turnout was close to zero.  (Though, again, as I said, this is all a simplification, in which I'm only looking at the top three lists.)

[minionofmidas]

Kurdish turnout was still very high, though not quite as ridiculously high as last time around (due to less fraud).

[minionofmidas]

Full results...(party names are those used by the IECI)

Unified Iraqi Coalition         5,021mio 41.2% 109+19
Kurdistani Gathering          2,642 mio 21.7% 43+10
Tawafoq Iraqi Front          1,840 mio 15.1% 37+7 (aka Accord Front)
National Iraqi List               977K         8.0%  21+4
Hewar National Iraqi Front 500K         4.1%  9+2 (aka National Dialogue Front)
Islamic Union of Kurdistan 158K         1.3%   4+1
Progressives                     145K         1.2%   1+1 (can someone tell me who these guys are? Their votes come from Shi'a areas)
Liberation & Reconciliation Gathering 130K 1.1% 3+0
Iraqi Turkuman Front        88K            0.7%  1+0
Al Rafedeen List                47K            0.4%  0+1 (Christians)
Iraqi National Congress     34K            0.3%  0+0
Mithal Al Aloosi List for Iraqi Nation 32K 0.3% 1+0
(3 no-seats, 0.2% parties)
Al Ezediah Movement for Progressing & Reform 22K 0.2 1+0 (Yezidis. Very interesting religious minority)

Turnout is hard to gather... the IECI's site (with an American domain address!?) doesn't seem to have the total registered as of december. It does have total registered as of january, since that is what the seat allocation was based on, but on these figures Sunni turnout was over 100% (unsurprising, as people tried to evade getting registered in january) and Kurdish turnout was about 100% (still up to their old tricks).

Anyways, results by province...comparison results are with January and come from that map by Patrick Ruffini...registered voters is january...I'm listing all the parties that got a seat plus one.

Basrah 16 seats - 1,035K registered voters - turnout 77.6%
UIC  77.5% (+7.3) 13
NIL 11.0% (-9.5) 2
Tawafoq 4.7% 1
"Movement of the Revolutionists of Al Shaabanya Uprising / Headquarters in Iraq" 1.8% What's the Al Shaabanya Uprising? Was that 1992?

Missan 7 seats - 417K voters - 77.0%
UIC 86.9% (+17.6) 6
NIL 4.3% (-15.2) 1
Progressives 3.4%

Theqar 12 seats - 779K voters - 74.8%
UIC 86.7% (+5.8) 11
NIL 5.0% (-5.6) 1
Progressives 2.9%

Muthana 5 seats - 295K voters - 69.8%
UIC 86.5% (+9.4) 5
NIL 4.3% (-12.9) 0

Qadissiya 8 seats - 487K voters - 68.8%
UIC 81.5% (+6.7) 7
NIL 8.5% (-8.8) 1
"The Islamic Al Wala'a Party" 2.2%

Najaf 8 seats - 494K voters - 76.9%
UIC 82.0% (+3.2) 7
NIL 7.8% (-6.4) 1
Progressives 4.1%

Wassit 8 seats - 495K voters - 70.9%
UIC 80.7% (+7.2) 7
NIL 8.1% (-9.2) 1
Progressives 4.5%

Karbala 6 seats - 409K voters - 74.6%
UIC 76.1% (+6.2) 5
NIL 11.7% (-9.5) 1
Progressives 2.7%

Babil 11 seats - 694K voters - 84.1%
UIC 76.2% (-3.1) 9
NIL 8.7% (-3.3) 1
Tawafoq 5.5% 1
Progressives 1.6%

Baghdad 59 seats - 3,665 mio voters - 72.1%
UIC 56.6% (-4.0) 34
Tawafoq 21.1% 13
NIL 13.4% (-11.4) 8
Hewar 1.8% 1
Progressives 1.8% 1
Kurds 1.0% 1
Mithal al Aloosi 0.6% 1
Al Rafedeen 0.4% 0

Anbar 9 seats - 574K voters - 101.0%
Tawafoq 73.8% (+62.8 on Al-Yawer list of january) 7
Hewar 18.0% 2
NIL 3.1% (-35.2) 0. Of course turnout in Anbar was so low a year ago that this represents an increase in votes. UIA got 34.8% then.

Salahaddin 8 seats - 498K voters - 108.8%
Tawafoq 33.1% 3
Hewar 18.9% 2
NIL 10.8% 1
LRG 9.5% 1
UIC 7.4% (-14.1) 1
Kurds 5.0% (-8.6) 0

Diyala 10 seats - 624K voters - 83.3%
Tawafoq 37.5% 4
UIC 22.4% (-20.8) 2
Kurds 12.4% (-5.0) 2
NIL 10.6% 1
Hewar 10.4% 1
LRG 1.4% 0

Kirkuk 9 seats - 576K voters - 101.7%
Kurds 53.4% (-6.3) 5
Hewar 14.0% 1
Turkuman 10.9% (-5.6) 1
Tawafoq 5.9% 1
LRG 4.5% 1
UIC 3.4% 0

Ninewa 19 seats - 1,198 mio voters - 77.0%
Tawafoq 36.7% (+8.6 on Al-Yawer) 7
Kurds 19.4% (-18.9) 4
NIL 11.0% 2
Hewar 10.2% 2
UIC 7.6% 2
LRG 2.9% 1
Al Ezediah 2.2% 1
"Al Mousel Free List" 1.4% 0

Sulaymaniya 15 seats - 914K voters - 87.5%
Kurds 87.2% 13 (-4.3)
IUK 10.8% 2
"The Islamic Movement in Kurdistan / Iraq" 1.4% 0

Erbil 13 seats - 795K voters - 102.6%
Kurds 94.7% (-0.1) 12
IUK 3.6% 1
NIL 0.4% 0

Dohuk 7 seats - 429K voters - 97.4%
Kurds 90.3% (-5.0) 6
IUK 7.1% 1
Al Rafedeen List 1.2% 0

[socaldem]

Full results...(party names are those used by the IECI)

Unified Iraqi Coalition         5,021mio 41.2% 109+19
Kurdistani Gathering          2,642 mio 21.7% 43+10
Tawafoq Iraqi Front          1,840 mio 15.1% 37+7 (aka Accord Front)
National Iraqi List               977K         8.0%  21+4
Hewar National Iraqi Front 500K         4.1%  9+2 (aka National Dialogue Front)
Islamic Union of Kurdistan 158K         1.3%   4+1
Progressives                     145K         1.2%   1+1 (can someone tell me who these guys are? Their votes come from Shi'a areas)
Liberation & Reconciliation Gathering 130K 1.1% 3+0
Iraqi Turkuman Front        88K            0.7%  1+0
Al Rafedeen List                47K            0.4%  0+1 (Christians)
Iraqi National Congress     34K            0.3%  0+0
Mithal Al Aloosi List for Iraqi Nation 32K 0.3% 1+0
(3 no-seats, 0.2% parties)
Al Ezediah Movement for Progressing & Reform 22K 0.2 1+0 (Yezidis. Very interesting religious minority)

The progressives, as it turns out are a Sadr-affiliated extremist Shi'a party... they're coalitoning with uia....

Incidentally, its gratifying to see that the seat break-down (for the regions) that I calculated way back in December, using the complicated electoral formula provided on the electoral comission website is almost exactly how the final results turned out.  The only change is that the UIA gave up a seat to the Sunnis in Baghdad...whether this is a concession to Sunni protests (some Sunni claim they should have a majority of Baghdad seats because their population is so obviously more than 20% and God forbid that the Kurds, of all people, would have greater representation than Arab sunni...) or a result of a more accurate vote count is unclear..

Well, I obviously have too much time on my hands...

Using the guidelines provided by the Iraq website, I crunched the numbers and came up with the following seat allocation (using the election data up now as if it were finalized)... in any case, this is probably a really good estimate of how the regional seats will be distributed....

Of 230 seats distributed among the provinces:

United Iraqi Coalition (religious shiite, Sistani, Sadr, Jafari et al): 109 seats

Iraq List (secular shiite, Allawi et al): 21

Kurds: 47
    Kurdish Gathering: 43
    Islamic Union of Kurdistan: 4

Sunnis: 44
Tawafoq Iraq Front (sunni): 35
Hewar Iraq Front (sunni): 9

Progressives:2
Peace and Reconciliation: 3
Others: 3

Since I didn't tally up the grand totals for each party nationwide and I don't quite know how the at-large seats are distributed, I didn't even try to calculate those.

Iraq has a very strange PR electoral system within each province.  Whereas in other countries where there are lots of third parties, the seats are distributed among the top vote getters by the percentage of the seated-party vote, in Iraq, the extra seats are distributed to parties with the "largest remainders," a procedure that allows small parties to have greater representation.

In any case, it looks like the religious shiite party will be just short of a majority based on the provincial tally.  Their success in the at-large vote may be greater, though, because of the better turn-out in shiite regions than in still tumultuous sunni areas... though, of course, sunni turn-out was much higher than last time.

I must say, though, that the Iraqi electoral system has been carefully designed to try to bring some ethnic balance to Iraq.  That appears to have happened... its just that the secular faction within shiite has proved weaker than expected.

[minionofmidas]

The system used is actually the same as in Germany - except for the lack of a threshold. (well - there was a threshold for the national seats, but that was 1/275th of the vote.)
By the way, Liberation & Reconciliation seems to be a Sunni Arab party as well, judging by where their votes came from.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Yezidis won a seat?

[minionofmidas]

The Yezidis won a seat?

Oh yes. 90%+ of their vote came from a single province, which helped immensely.

[socaldem]

The system used is actually the same as in Germany - except for the lack of a threshold. (well - there was a threshold for the national seats, but that was 1/275th of the vote.)
By the way, Liberation & Reconciliation seems to be a Sunni Arab party as well, judging by where their votes came from.

Well, the fact that Iraq does not have a threshold is a BIG difference.... Germany can't possibly use the Iraq system of distributing votes within provinces because the Iraqi system, in its dependence on size of "remainders" rather than on proportion of the vote... that's where Iraq's seat distribution is most convoluted....

[minionofmidas]

What we don't do is have proportional seats for regions and then top-up seats nationally - well actually, Saarland state does. But we're sure using largest remainders. I think the Dutch are as well, and their threshold is 1/150th of the national vote.

[freek]

But we're sure using largest remainders. I think the Dutch are as well, and their threshold is 1/150th of the national vote.

No, we don't. In the Netherlands, the d'Hondt-largest averages method is used, at least for elections involving 19 or more seats (which are all elections except municipal council elections in municipalities with <20,000 inhabitants).

The threshold is 1/150th of the national vote though for Second Chamber elections, for other councils with 19+ seats there is no official threshold, but the largest average method favours the larger parties.

For municipal councils with 9-17 seats, the largest remainder method is used, and a threshold of 1/(0.75*# of seats) of the vote.

The largest remainder system was used on a national level though, from 1918-1933, with a threshold of 1/200th of the national vote in 1918 and 1/150th in 1922-1933. Since this resulted in a lot of small parties and electoral tricks by larger parties, this was abolished for the 1937 elections when the present system was introduced.

[minionofmidas]

But we're sure using largest remainders. I think the Dutch are as well, and their threshold is 1/150th of the national vote.

No, we don't. In the Netherlands, the d'Hondt-largest averages method is used, at least for elections involving 19 or more seats (which are all elections except municipal council elections in municipalities with <20,000 inhabitants).

The threshold is 1/150th of the national vote though for Second Chamber elections, for other councils with 19+ seats there is no official threshold, but the largest average method favours the larger parties.

For municipal councils with 9-17 seats, the largest remainder method is used, and a threshold of 1/(0.75*# of seats) of the vote.

The largest remainder system was used on a national level though, from 1918-1933, with a threshold of 1/200th of the national vote in 1918 and 1/150th in 1922-1933. Since this resulted in a lot of small parties and electoral tricks by larger parties, this was abolished for the 1937 elections when the present system was introduced.

D'Hondt is not largest averages though. Maybe you're thinking of Sainte-Lague?

[freek]

D'Hondt is not largest averages though. Maybe you're thinking of Sainte-Lague?

Nope. We use the D'Hondt-system of largest averages, i.e. votes divided through (seats+1),2,3,4,etc.

Sainte-Laguë is essentially the same system, but it uses 1,3,5,7,etc as divisors, thereby lacking the favouring of larger parties of the D'Hondt-system.