Iraq's Shiite parties won the December 15 parliamentary elections, but short of an absolute majority, according to results from the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI) on Friday.

 

The Shiite bloc won 128 seats in the 275-member parliament, which was short of an absolute majority, the commission spokesman Safwat Rasheed told a new conference in Baghdad, adding that the Kurdish bloc garnered 53 seats.

 

The Sunni Arab Iraqi National Consensus Front came third as it won 44 seats and the secular al-Iraqiya List headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi won 25 seats, and the National Dialogue Front, another key Sunni Arab party, won 11 seats.

 

The Shiite and the Kurdish blocs, who expected to garner the absolute majority in order to form the government, have garnered 181 seats which entails three seats to obtain the two thirds of the 275 seats necessary to form a government.

 

Sunni Arabs were under-represented in the interim parliament after a majority of them boycotted the January elections in 2005.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 21, 2006)