Iraq's Shia Muslims have joined forces to create the country’s first serious post-war political coalition, which could well sweep to power in elections scheduled for the end of next month.

In spite of continued violence and calls for the polls to be postponed, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) today published the names of 228 candidates, who will contest the election on January 30.

The group could become easily dominate the future 275-member assembly. Crucially, it has the backing of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia Muslims, who make up more than 60 per cent of the country’s 26 million people.

Dr Hussain al-Shahristani, a former professor from the University of Surrey who helped draw up the coalition, insisted that the group represented "all Iraqis, not just the Shias".

"The different parties and the national figures asked the religious authority to help it form an alliance that represents the Iraqi spectrum with its various religious, ethnic and geographic components," he said.

The list, which groups 25 parties and scores of independent candidates, does include members of other religious sects, including Sunni Muslims, Kurds, Yazidis and Turkomens.

But it is dominated by Shia candidates and in the eyes of most Iraqis the coalition will be seen as reflecting their interests. Although the largest community in Iraq, the Shias have been dominated for centuries by the minority Sunni Muslim Arabs. When Iraq came under British rule after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the Shias launched a failed uprising in 1923 against the occupation. The result was that Sunni rule continued in Baghdad. Many Shia leaders today argue that the community cannot afford to make the same mistake twice and should participate in a process likely to hand them power through the ballot box.

The Shia candidates include members of former exile groups like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Islamic Dawa Party, and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) headed by the former Pentagon-backed emigre Ahmad Chalabi. There are also figures linked to Hojatoleslam Moqtadr al-Sadr, who until three months ago was leading a violent Shia uprising against the US-led occupation of Iraq.

Today’s announcement will be seen as a huge boost to the efforts by the Bush Administration and the government of Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi Prime Minister, to keep to the electoral timetable in the face of growing calls for a postponement, most recently by President Putin of Russia.

The launch of the coalition could spur others to follow suit. Many Iraqi politicians have been debating whether to participate in the election campaign, which is widely expected to be plagued by an upsurge in violence from groups opposed to the Shias taking power.

The next important party list is expected to drawn from the two main Kurdish groups, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who have been bitter enemies in the past but have agreed to run under one banner in the election.

Nevertheless there is still strong resistance from Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, who regard the election as a way of stripping them of their traditional rule.

The Association of Sunni Scholars, an influential religious group, repeated its call today for Sunnis to boycott the polls, describing the election as "madness".

"The association’s stance toward the elections is firm and unchanged - we will not take a part in these elections because ... no elections can be held under the pressure of the Americans and the ... deteriorating security situation," said Sheik Mohammed Bashar Al-Faidhi, an association spokesman.

Nevertheless, some Sunnis have defied the call. Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba, the head of the powerful Shamar tribes in the north city of Mosul, was among a handful of prominent Sunni Muslim figures on the UIA list today.

"I think that this list is a patriotic list. We hope that Iraqi people will back this list," said Sheikh Fawaz.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Red Cross: Israel guilty of 'unacceptable' conduct
• Mobster Gotti 'dipped neighbour in acid bath'
• Hollywood wakes up to the British breakfast