Shenanigans of the Winner's Coalition

By Dave Anderson: 

The initial count of seat allocation in the Iraqi elections is in.  No one has close to a majority, and the Allawi led coalition, al Iraqiya, has a two seat lead over Maliki's State of Law (SOL) list.  Under normal parliamentary rules, and Iraqi law, the group with the plurality gets the first crack at forming a governing coalition.  

Swopa fills us in on the shenanigans :

under the Iraqi constitution, the electoral coalition with the largest number of seats in parliament gets the first chance to form a government, including choosing a prime minister. But because although Allawi’s slate came in first in the voting, the court ruled that a coalition formed after the election would be eligible — meaning that Maliki’s party and the bloc of Shiite religious parties (who came in second and third, respectively) could unite and thereby “win” the right to stay in power.
As a result, a coalition like the one I predicted two weeks ago is still the most likely outcome: Maliki’s “State of Law” bloc (unfortunate acronym and all), his off-and-on Shiite allies (including those loyal to U.S. bogeyman-cleric Moqtada as-Sadr), and the largest Kurdish parties, creating a near-reunion of the 2005 government.

Allawi's coalition is basically a coalition of the losers of the Iraqi civil war; predominately Sunni Arabs with a smattering of professional class and secular Shi'ites. They make up about a quarter of the population while the Kurds make up another quarter and the winning Shi'ite coalition is split in a couple of groups that make up about half the population. The Kurds have the simple goal of maintaining the status quo of de facto autonomy and quasi-independence in the north, while the winning Shi'ite coalition, including the Sadrists, want to continue to beat down on the Sunnis and the other assorted losers of the Iraqi civil war.

So shenanigans are ensuing as the loser coalition led by Allawi was basically unified as the Anbar Awakening electoral group was crushed and the winner coalition was fragmented as the Sadrists did not want to be tainted by the ineffectiveness of the Maliki government in providing basic services but the Sadrists are aligned with Sistani's goal set over the goal set of Allawi.  The winner's coalition is using every lever they have to maintain their power.  

So hold your chocolate and flowers in your purple stained hands before the American punditocracy experiences another episode of pre-mature Iraqulation caused by democracy, sexy, whiskey!