Three days ahead of the controversial vote, a leading Iraqi resistance group vowed not to target polling stations or attack innocent Iraqis, saying the real battle is against the occupiers.
In a statement, the Salah Al-Dine Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Front for Resistance, said they would not be dragged into a battle against their own people.
The group pledged to avoid targeting polling stations or being involved in spilling the blood of innocent civilians.
“We are keen not to harm the lives of all Iraqis regardless of their sects and races — that is an order for the armed wing of the group to follow,” said the two-page statement.
“We should not be dragged into side battles which do not affect the true struggle with the enemy occupiers,”
Source Islam On Line
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Iraqi Election Projected Results
from Debka
For elections held now, Hooker projects the following figures:
The Shiite Unified Iraqi Alliance list – 43.8% = 120 national assembly seats.
The Kurdish list – a surprising 36.4% (more than twice their 16–18% proportion of the general population) = 100 seats.
The Iraqi National Accord – 8.1% = 22 seats. (A formula is being actively sought to retain him as premier even if his showing is low.)
The Iraqi Communist party (the best organized) – 1.6% = 5 seats.
All the Assyrian, Turkomen and Yazdi minorities together – 4 seats.
All the rest – 5 seats.
Analysis of Election Results by DEBKA
The first conclusion reached by our analysts is that, while the leading Shiite UIA bloc can expect to be the big winner of the election, the real victor will be the Shiite cleric who assembled and founded the alliance, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his inner circle. The slate he drew up of candidates to the legislature reflects his political aspirations and cunning: of the 120 registered, the first 60 are independents with no parties behind them and will therefore be totally dependent on Sistani himself for support.
Al-Hakim’s SCIRI will get no more than 14 assembly seats, while al-Jafari’s al Dawa must be content with 12. The former rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr’s following will match al Dawa with 12 places in the legislature
The slate he assembled also pushes pro-Tehran and Iran’s chosen men down to the unrealistic bottom.
Sistani wants to see non-clerical ministers in the post-election government but will insist on incorporating Islamic law as the basis of the national constitution.
The Kurds owe their projected big win to three prime causes:
1. The union of the two principal lists, which will help them carry districts in which each faction is fragmentary, like Iraq’s second largest town of Mosul and certain quarters of Baghdad.
2. Major concessions by Sistani in Kirkuk, where he endorsed the transfer of tens of thousands of Kurdish voters into the city. Quietly underway at this moment is the largest demographic transformation in Iraq since the war began, an abrupt reversal of the population displacement conducted by Saddam Hussein. Sunni families are being pushed out of Kirkuk to the Sunni Triangle and replaced by incoming Kurds. Turkomen, Assyrians and Yazdis gnash their teeth but have not the power to interfere in the Kurdish takeover of the mixed city.
3. Another key Sistani concession was his consent to local elections taking place in Kurdish regions for a Kurdish national assembly at the same time as the general election. In return, the Kurdish leaders have granted Sistani a powerful tool of government, a promise to join his Unified Iraqi Bloc in a coalition administration.
The Shiite cleric has little to fear from this alliance. He knows the Kurds are only interested in expanding their own self-government and will therefore not muscle in on the central administration with power-sharing demands. Their backing, however, provides insurance for stable Shiite-dominated government in the long term.
The Sunni Muslim minority can hardly be expected to sit still as the Shiites and Kurds split up the post-war spoils of power.
stop fucking calling them “resistance” !!!