The final uncertified election results for Iraq’s Parliamentary elections have been released indicating that one of the parties tied to the Muslim Brotherhood suffered significant losses while the other continued to perform poorly. According to the results, the Tawafuq party won only six seats. In December 2005, the party won 44 seats, the most for any Sunni Arab coalition. According to a Carnegie Endowment report , the Tawafuq, also known as the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF), is a coalition dominated by the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), strongly tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood. According to a profile posted on globalsecurity.org:
The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), established in 1960, is the major Sunni political organization in the country …The party was suppressed during the regime of former President Saddam Hussein. Many of its members were forced to flee the country. The party returned to public life after coalition forces occupied Iraq. The IIP seeks to preserve the leading role Sunnis have had in running the country starting with the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in the beginning of the 20th century. The Iraqi Islamic Party was formed as an Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood organization, and conducted underground work during the Baathist period. Thee party does not considers itself a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood Group, established in Egypt in 1994, nor a political front for it in Iraq. The Iraqi Islamic Party acknowledges strong ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood through political and intellectual alliances.
As discussed in a post from October 2009, Usama al-Tikriti was chosen to head the IAF and who had previously been chosen to head the IIP. Usama al-Tikriti is also the father of Anas al-Tikriti, the former leader of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and now a leader in the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), both part of the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood.
According to knowledgeable sources:
The Sunni Arab Islamists (IIP and Tawafuq) were expected to do poorly in the elections due primarly to the failure of IIP officials in Al Anbar province and parliament to deliver on campaign promises (jobs, essesntial services, and security were the big ones) made in the ’05 elections. There had also been an apparent growing support for secularist Ayad Allawi. IIP started suffering setbacks when Iraqi tribes that had previously battled al-Qaeda entered the political arena in last years provincial elections.
The other Iraqi party tied to the global Brotherhood is the the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), identified by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kurdistan. The BBC has a short profile on the KIU:
Also known as Yekgirtu, the Kurdish Islamic Union is the largest Islamic organisation in Iraqi Kurdistan. It was formally established in 1994. The group’s leaders fought the 1992 legislative elections in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, winning third place behind the KDP and PUK. The party is currently led by Secretary-General Sheikh Salah al-Din Muhammad Baha al-Din. The party is supported mainly by donations from Saudi Islamic organisations. Active in charity work in the region, the party has been building mosques, clinics and schools in rural areas, where it has a strong following.
The KIU won four seats in the recent election as opposed to the five it won in December 2005, According to the same knowledgeable source:
The KIU’s influence holds steadily low due to the relatively low level of support for the Islamist agenda in Iraqi Kurdistan. The overwhelming number of Iraqi Kurds have consistently proven to be dedicated nationalists (to their desired independent Kurdish state). The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU).
Discussion
For an interesting analysis of the results, go here.