IRAQ’S new leaders were squaring off last night for weeks, if not months, of tough political bargaining after final election results revealed that the dominant Shia theocratic alliance had failed to secure an absolute majority and that the marginalised Sunni groups had made substantial political gains.

The Shia United Iraqi Alliance, which dominated the outgoing transitional parliament, won 128 out of 275 seats up for grabs, which will force it to share power, most likely with the Kurdish coalition that secured 55 seats.

Even as the parliamentary blocks of both Shias and Kurds were reduced, the political muscle of the Sunnis received a major boost, a development that Western officials hope will entice disenfranchised Sunnis into the political mainstream and away from the insurgency.

The main Sunni alliance, the National Accord Front, won 44 seats, while another block garnered 11, making them a powerful force in the new political landscape. Sunnis held only 17 seats in the previous assembly.

The biggest loser of the elections was Ahmed Chalabi, the former Pentagon favourite whose faulty intelligence sparked the invasion. Out of favour with the US, the slick former banker ditched his secularist image and ran in the last elections with Shia conservatives to win a deputy prime minister’s post. This time, he ran alone and did not win a seat.

Secularists backed by the US fared badly. Led by Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, they won only 25 seats.

Political leaders acknowledge that with more players in the arena, many with contradictory goals, negotiations to form a viable government against a backdrop of deepening violence will be a major challenge.

“This time it will be difficult,” said Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdish Foreign Minister, who predicted that bartering for key Cabinet posts could drag on to the end of next month. Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Shia Vice-President tipped as a possible Prime Minister, has said that it could take until April.

The first challenge will be to muster a two-thirds majority in parliament to nominate a presidency council, consisting of president and two deputies. They, in turn, will name a premier to form a Cabinet. The unwieldy process was instituted by the Americans to prevent any single ethnic group from steamrollering its rivals in the early days of Iraqi democracy.

The Shia alliance and the Kurds are widely expected to reunite in their existing coalition, but that will still leave them just short of the two-thirds mark. They could draw on several of the smaller groups to pass the threshold, but the Kurds have insisted that, in common with many Western officials, they want to form a broad national unity government that includes the Sunnis.

One key difficulty lies in the Shias and Kurds having core aims — federalism and the regional distribution of oil wealth — that are sharply at odds with the Sunnis, who believe the loose federalism being proposed will break up Iraq. The Shia alliance wants to emulate in the oil-rich Shia south the northern Kurdish autonomous region. Sunnis, who have no oil in their desert region of western Iraq, strongly oppose the idea.

Despite Sunni accusations of widespread electoral fraud, informal talks have begun between the main Sunni block and the Kurds over the formation of a consensus government. Many observers believe that the Sunnis could be offered the defence portfolio to secure their collaboration.

“Now we are part of the election and we have seats in the National Assembly, so we have the right now to nominate a number of candidates to various posts, but we’ll be a major part in negotiating the agenda of the government,” Tariq al-Hashemi, of the National Accord Front, said.

THE MAIN POWER BLOCS

United Iraqi Alliance 146 seats, down 18. Shia coalition dominated by clerics and religious conservatives, many with close ties to Iran, and backed by powerful militias. Led by Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Also includes Islamist group Dawa, Iraq’s oldest Shia party, which fought Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1980s, and loyalists of Hojestoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against the US military and the 2004 secular government it installed in 2004

Kurdish Coalition 53 seats, down 20. Comprises Kurdistan’s two dominant parties, the Kurdish Democratic Union (KDP) of Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani, the outgoing Iraqi president. Kingmakers in the new parliament, the secular Kurds want a loose federal status

National Accord Front 44 seats, boycotted last election. Main Sunni block comprising three nationalist and religiously conservative parties. Led by Adnan al-Dulaimi. Observers hope Sunni participation will help to stem the Sunni-led insurgency, but opposition to federalism a problem

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