Basra Council Dominated by Fundamenatlists

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: The results have been announced for Basra province. The city of Basra alone has 1.2 million inhabitants, so this is a major province, and is largely Shiite. Fundamentalist Shiite parties gained 85 percent of the seats. The United Iraqi Alliance won 20 seats, or 49 percent.

The Islamic Fadila Party won 12 seats, or 29 percent. (Fadilah is an offshoot of the Sadr II movement led by Muhammad Yaqubi). Since the UIA is a coalition, this result makes Fadilah the biggest single party on the council.

The Islamic Dawa Party, which ran apart from the UIA in Basra, received 3 seats or 7 percent. The remaining 5 seats were distributed among the Iraqi National Accord (Iyad Allawi), which received 4 seats or 10 percent and the Caucus for Iraq's Future, which received 2 seats.

Women received 29 percent of the seats.