With the freedom to vote comes the freedom to rig the vote

Turkmen and Arab political parties in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk have accused Kurds of fixing the result of provincial elections held on the 30 January.

Official results for the election held on the same day as Iraq's national vote have not yet been released.

But Turkmen and Arab parties in the northern city on Sunday said that Kurds from other parts of the country flooded the city on election day to inflate the community's vote.

[...]

"The elections lack credibility because of the major violations and the absence of international observers," a Turkmen candidate for the provincial election, Saad al-Din Arkaj, said after a meeting of Turkmen parties in Kirkuk
  Aljazeera article

I shouldn't make this out to be true, just because it is alleged, but with what's at stake for the Kurds, I think it is at least plausible.

Juan Cole has more on the elections results.

Al-Hayat: An official spokesman for the Da`wa Party said Saturday that its political office had put forward Ibrahim Jafari as a candidate for president of Iraq. At the same time, the United Iraqi Alliance [Ed: Shi'a], of which Da`wa is one member, announced that it would insist on having the prime ministership. The UIA will probably dominate the new parliament, and is announcing that UN- and US- appointed interim PM Iyad Allawi will not continue in the post. Jafari points out that it would be undemocratic to have him continue, because his list has only about a fourth the votes that the UIA gots.

Another leading contender for president is Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader.

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Jafari told the Independent that he would try to bring radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr into the government.

Edward Wong discusses the religious implications of the Shi'a victory.

Shiite clerics are pushing for Islam to be enshrined in the new constitution, governing such matters as marriage, divorce and family inheritance.

On other issues, opinion varies, with the more conservative leaders insisting that Shariah, or Islamic law, be the foundation for all legislation.

Such a constitution would be a sharp departure from the transitional law that the Americans enacted before appointing the interim government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. One focus of the U.S. effort then was to secure equal rights for women and minorities. But in the constitutional assembly, the U.S. influence will be much reduced.

[...]

Shiite politicians, recognizing a possible backlash from secular leaders and the Americans, have publicly promised not to install a theocracy similar to that of Iran or allow clerics to run the country.

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But the clerics of Najaf, the holiest city of Shiite Islam, have emerged as the greatest power in the new Iraq. They forced the Americans to conform to their timetable for a political process. Their standing was bolstered last Sunday by the high turnout among Shiite voters and a widespread boycott by the minority Sunni Arabs, and the clerics will now wield enormous behind-the-scenes influence in the writing of the constitution by their coalition built around religious parties.

The leading Shiite clerics say they have no intention of taking executive office and following the Iranian model of direct government by religious scholars. But the clerics also say that the Shiite politicians ultimately answer to them and that the top religious leaders will shape the constitution through the politicians.

Ann Telnaes

And I'm reminded again of the Burke quote:

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Cole concludes his post...

Meanwhile, guerilla actions all over the country left 22 dead, including two US troops.