Allawi faces defeat as Iraqi cleric's team leads the polls

The coalition of Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim Prime Minister appointed by the Americans, is heading for election defeat at the hands of a list backed by the country's senior Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, partial results released yesterday indicate.

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  thanks to Antiwar.com

Guerrillas Kill 29, Incl. 3 Marines
Sistani List Looks set to Win Big
by Juan Cole

John Burns and Dexter Filkin of the NYT report that initial voting returns now leaking out from Baghdad and some southern, Shiite provinces, suggest that the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shiite religious parties blessed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is getting 72 percent of the vote. It won't get that on a nation-wide basis, since it won't have done well in the areas north and west of the capital. But it certainly will form the next government. Allawi's list is likely to end up with less than 40 seats in the 275-seat parliament.

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