And georgies war zone elections FALLS TO PIECES... THE INSURGENCY IS NOT GOING AWAY. It may have just gotten MUCH WORSE

Iraqi Sunnis dispute

election results

Tue Dec 20, 4:21 PM ET
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BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's opposition factions, including the largest Sunni group, contested Shiite election gains in Baghdad and threatened to demand a new ballot as preliminary results exposed a heavy sectarian bias.

Even as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called for unity governments to transcend the country's divisions, the results show that Iraqis voted primarily by their ethnic or sectarian identity.

The National Concord Front, a coalition of three major Sunni powers that competed in parliamentary polls for the first time, condemned what it described as fraud and violations in the election.

Amid high sectarian tensions between the majority Shiites and the fallen Sunni elite, the Sunni coalition cast doubt on preliminary results that favored the largest Shiite coalition in Baghdad.

"We reject these results announced by the commission," Adnan al-Dulaimi, one of the leaders of the National Concord Front coalition, he told a news conference.

The predominantly Shiite provinces in the south voted overwhelmingly -- to the tune of 75 percent to 95 percent -- for the religious Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.

Similar percentages were recorded in the three northern Kurdish provinces voted for the Kurdish Alliance.

The strongly Sunni province of Al-Anbar voted almost 74 percent for the National Concord Front and nearly 18 percent for Sunni rivals, the National Dialogue Front.

Initial results in mixed provinces such as Diyala and Nineveh threw up inconclusive results matching ethnic and sectarian breakdowns.

The big loser was the cross-sectarian secular coalition of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, which broke the 10 percent barrier in only a handful of provinces, despite expectations that he would perform well.

Hamid Majid Mussa, secretary general of the communist party and Allawi ally, called the commission's release of preliminary results "irresponsible".

"They are harming the political process at a time when we are trying to build a state of laws and institutions," said Mussa.

Election official Farid Ayar told a news conference that official results are still a long way off.

"The final results will not be announced before the beginning of next year because we have more than 1,000 complaints," he said.

Of those complaints, at least 20 were very serious, Ayar added.

The leaders of the Sunni list specifically called on the electoral commission to reexamine and correct the results they had announced so far.

"The electoral commission can still rectify the situation, otherwise it will be entirely responsible for this fraud which will have serious repercussions on the security and economic situation," said Tareq al-Hashimi.

Khalilzad said in his year-end address that Iraq could only work if there is "cross ethnic and cross-sectarian cooperation" and called for a "broad-based national unity government".

After elections for a transitional assembly in January, it took Iraqi politicians more than two months to form a new government, which many observers believed wasted political momentum.

The Sunni Arabs, the political elite under the regime of Saddam Hussein, largely boycotted January's elections and their decision to participate this month was seen as a major step forward in restoring national unity.

"We want a governing alliance that combines everyone," Talabani said, insisting Iraq "cannot be governed by a majority that ignores the minority".

Violence has once again risen following a period of quiet around the election, for which a huge security clampdown was imposed.

The driver of the Jordanian ambassador was kidnapped early Tuesday, one day after an extremist Islamist group posted a video on the Internet claiming to have killed a US contractor taken hostage in Iraq earlier this month.

Mahmud Salman Saaidiyat, a Jordanian based in Iraq for several years, was kidnapped in southern Baghdad, police said.

Six Iraqis were also shot dead, continuing a trend of the past few days of small isolated attacks, largely targeting police and those working for the US forces.

And as violence continued, Saddam and his seven co-defendants were to resume trial on Wednesday over the massacre of 148 Shiite villagers from Dujail more than 20 years.

On Tuesday night, one of his defense lawyers, former Qatari justice minister Najib al-Nuami, claimed that he had harangued by death threats after flying into Iraq.

Nuami said he would present a petition in court on Wednesday demanding better security, and threatened to boycott future hearings unless adequate protection was provided for the defence.