Written by: Beck

ABC News has the details. Long story short: Sistani's Shiites (a.k.a. United Iraqi Alliance) claimed less than half the vote and will have to form a coalition. Find a nifty graphic breakdown of the major party's results here.

The Kurds pulled the second most votes, with Ayad Allawi's secular party pulling in at third place. Overall voter turnout was 60%. Incidentally, could someone explain to me what the following paragraph is doing, all by its lonesome, in the middle of an article about the Iraqi election?

Elsewhere Sunday, insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy and a government building near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving at least four people dead, hospital workers said. Two Iraqi National Guard troops were also killed while trying to defuse a roadside bomb.

The article has nothing to do with current terrorist attacks, and not one paragraph before or after this one even touch on the subject. They just threw it in sandwiched between two paragraphs about voter turnout. WTF?

At any rate, the Sunnis wind up under represented as a consequence of Sunni leader calls for a boycott. Many people--John Kerry comes to mind--used this fact as justification for their criticism of the Iraq elections as illegitimate. Ironically, the Sunnis have realized their error, repudiated their decision to boycott the election, and are now trying to get involved in the political process.

Despite the miniscule number of seats the Sunnis will have in the National Assembly, leaders from all sides are making noises about inclusion and not marginalizing the Sunnis.

Iraq's Arab Sunnis will do a U-turn and join the political process despite their lack of representation in the newly elected national assembly, Sunni leaders said yesterday.

Many Sunnis protested that the election was flawed and unfair, but in the wake of Sunday's results, which confirmed the marginalisation of what was Iraq's ruling class, their political parties want to lobby for a share of power.

"Our view is that this election was a step towards democracy and ending the occupation," said Ayad al-Samaray, the assistant general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic party. He said unnamed Sunni leaders blundered in depicting the election as a deepening of the occupation.

[...] All three blocs have promised to reach out to the Sunnis, who comprise a fifth of the population but won just a handful of seats because of low turnouts in their areas. This will soon be tested as parties forge alliances and tussle for government posts, including that of prime minister and president.

Secular Sunni leaders yesterday accepted the victors' invitation to participate, potentially draining support from the insurgency.

"We can't say it was wise or logical to not participate; it was an emotional decision," said Mr Samaray. "Now the Sunni community faces the fact that it made a big mistake and that it would have been far better to participate."

His party, the main Sunni group since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, was in talks with Kurds and Shias. He added: "The Sunni community will accept to share this country with others. They do not need to dominate."

Read the whole article if you have any interest at all in the subject--it gives a lot of hope to those who would like to see democracy succeed in Iraq.

(Hat tip: CQ & QandO)

Update: Via IED, MEMRI has a very thorough breakdown of the election results. It's worth noting that while Sistani's United Iraqi Alliance received 48% of the popular vote, they managed to secure 140 seats on the 275 seat National Assembly--i.e. they have an outright majority.