After the elections

Bush wastes no time trying to spend his new capital

President Bush spoke by telephone with French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, urging them to help consolidate the gains expected from the vote.

Bush would like European allies to provide technical advice and support to help build basic public education, develop national assembly operations and train police, among other things, senior administration officials said.
  LA Times article

Because they are the ones who destroyed everything, I suppose.

Insurgents begin to deliver on their promise of retribution

Masked gunmen in the northeastern town of Baaqubah shot off the fingers of at least four Shia voters after they went to the polls in Iraq’s historic elections.

After the polling stations had closed at 5 pm on January, the insurgents set up makeshift checkpoints around the city to look for people marked with indelible ink on their index finger – a sign that they had voted.

Najm al-Firaiji, a 21-year-old student, told IWPR how he was targeted standing with a friend outside his house in the al-Suwamra neighborhood in the city’s New Baaqubah area, about two and a half hours after polls closed.

Four masked men approached and asked whether anyone in the neighbourhood had gone out to vote.

Al-Firaiji’s friend ran off, and the student told the man he didn’t think anyone had been to the polls.

But then one of the men pointed a pistol at his head and told him to show them his finger. It bore the telltale purple ink stain, and one of the gunmen shot it off.

[...]

Al-Firaju and three other victims of similar attacks were treated in Baaqubah’s hospital.
  IWPR article

The Ayatollah looks to be in good standing - and he's been there all along

A Shi'ite Muslim bloc tacitly backed by a revered ayatollah is poised to dominate Iraq's newly-elected parliament, marking a sea change in Iraqi politics after eight decades of rule by minority Sunni Muslim Arabs.

[...]

Iraqis may have to wait days for the Electoral Commission to declare the results, but if those projections are correct, the Alliance could link with smaller parties to build a two-thirds majority in parliament, enough to choose Iraq's new leaders.

[...]

A Kurdish grouping is expected to come second behind the United Iraqi Alliance, with a secular bloc led by Shi'ite interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi likely to take third place.

The Alliance was formed under the auspices of top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who says his political role will end when the assembly produces a new Iraqi constitution.
  Reuters article

Indeed, one with religious laws.

The likelihood that no single party will dominate the assembly will mean extensive horse-trading before a prime minister is chosen. Allawi is not out of the running.

[...]

Any contender will need to be on good terms with Washington and to be broadly acceptable to Iraq's competing communities.

Or what?

And now comes the real trouble.

Under the charter, the national assembly must first pick a president and two deputies by a two-thirds majority. The president and deputies then pick a party or coalition, along with its choice of a prime minister, to form a government. In practical terms, that means the group that ultimately takes power needs the same backing as the president the deputies: two-thirds of the assembly.

Shiite leaders believe they have a formula for securing the necessary two-thirds majority: through a deal with Kurdish leaders.

So if Dr. Allawi's slate of candidates, called the Iraqi List, or a coalition that he patches together wins just one-third of the assembly seats, he would be in a position to block the ascension of the Shiite coalition to power. Then, political leaders here say, Dr. Allawi could be in a position to offer himself to the coalition as a candidate for prime minister, or he could try to pick off members of the Shiite coalition and cobble together a coalition for himself.

Barring that, Dr. Allawi could use his effective veto power to extract political concessions from any new government.

"Everything will depend on how Allawi does relative to the Shiite coalition," said an aide to an Iraqi political party leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Allawi's chance will come if the Shiite coalition breaks up."

To prevent that from happening, the leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance are working feverishly to shore up their group.

[...]

One of the main stresses inside the Shiite coalition stems from a division over the group's choice for prime minister. The two main candidates are Dawa's leader, Ibrahim Jafari, and Mr. Mahdi of Sciri. Leaders of both parties have begun making deals to gain the support of their candidates within the coalition.

The struggle for the prime minister's job does not end there. Two other leaders of the Shiite coalition who are not affiliated with either Dawa or Sciri, Mr. Chalabi and Hussein Shahristani, are also said to be seeking the job.

"Believe me, the back-room dealing has already begun," said a senior leader of the Shiite coalition, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
  NY Times article

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