A SHIA coalition backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s leading cleric, last night emerged as the force likely to dominate government after the first snapshot of results from last Sunday’s elections.

With no results yet in from Sunni or Kurdish areas — and only partial figures from Baghdad and the five Shia-dominated southern provinces of Najaf, Karbala, Qadisiyah, Dhiqar and Muthana — officials said days of counting and weeks of horse-trading lay ahead.

But with a quarter of Baghdad’s polling stations tallied and between 45 and 70 per cent of the southern provinces, the al-Sistani-backed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) had won 71.6 per cent of the 1.6 million votes counted, with the “Iraqi List” of Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister, a long way behind in second place with 18.1 per cent.

There is still no official turnout figure and the results represent just 10 per cent of polling centres. Five of the six provinces are heavily Shia, and Sunnis and Kurds were never expected to poll more than a tiny fraction of the electorate in southern cities such as Najaf, Karbala, al-Nasiriyah, Samawa and Diwaniyah.

Meanwhile, insurgents renewed their campaign of violence after a post-election lull, killing at least 28 people. Gunmen near Kirkuk ordered army recruits off a bus and killed twelve of them, leaving two to warn others against joining the US-backed security forces.

West of Baghdad, guerrillas ambushed a police convoy near Abu Ghraib prison, killing two policemen, wounding fourteen and leaving at least thirty-six missing. But in a rare case of civilians fighting back, villagers in al-Mudhiryah, south of Baghdad, killed five insurgents who had attacked them for voting.

The jockeying for power is likely to intensify in the coming weeks and the Kurds staked out their claim for a key role in the government yesterday, nominating Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, as candidate for prime minister or president.

“We will not accept other than that,” said Masoud Barzani, leader of the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party, which has joined forces with Mr Talabani.

Kurds and Shias are both likely to have got out their voters in large numbers, in contrast with the 20 per cent Sunni minority, many of whom boycotted the election.

The United Iraqi Alliance is headed by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), which has close ties to Iran.

Although it has a strong religious bias, Sciri is unlikely to propose its leader, the cleric Abdelaziz al-Hakim, as prime minister. Most Iraqis would prefer a more secular face at the helm, making it likely that figures such as Adel Abdel Mehdi, the Finance Minister, or Ibrahim Jaafari, leader of the conservative Dawa party which forms part of the Shia coalition, could step to the fore.

Another front-runner is Hussein al-Shahristani, a physicist who was jailed by Saddam Hussein for refusing to build a nuclear bomb and who escaped to Iran in 1991. He is also close to Ayatollah al-Sistani, who has rejected the Iranian model of governing theocracy.

However, a landslide would not automatically mean that the UIA would form a national government. Some Western diplomats predicted that the ticket could break up amid rivalry between Sciri and its long-time rival Dawa over the division of ministries. Other small parties, including Sunni and Kurdish groups, may also spin off to form their own alliances within the assembly.

Dr Allawi’s party, tipped to win about 25 per cent of the seats, could try to form a coalition with other secular lists such as that led by Ghazi al-Yawer, the Sunni interim President. The Kurdish bloc should play a pivotal role in making or breaking a new government.

Many expect Dr Allawi to do well among Basra’s middle classes. It is also unclear how supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the renegade cleric, will do.

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