Iraq election results are too bad to spin

No one's even trying to say this is "good news":

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Saturday his secular political alliance is open to bringing any of his rivals into a governing coalition that can restore Iraq's place in the Arab and Muslim world after years of war.

Allawi's Iraqiya bloc came out the top vote-getter in March 7 parliamentary elections, edging out his chief rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who vowed to challenge the results . . .

Allawi, a Shiite who has called for a greater voice for the Sunni minority that dominated Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein, has appealed for a broad coalition centered on national identity rather than religious sect . . . Sunni neighborhoods across Baghdad erupted into wild pandemonium after the results were announced, dancing in the streets and waving Iraqi flags. But with the Sunni minority making up only about 15-20% of Iraq . . .

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2010-03-27-iraq_N.htm

How's this going to turn out?

In a harbinger of what may be in store, twin bombings hit a busy area in the town of Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, just before the election results were announced Friday night.

The police spokesman for Diyala province, Capt. Ghalib al-Karkhi, said Saturday that 57 people were killed and 73 were wounded in the explosions, first from a car bomb that went off outside a restaurant and then from a roadside bomb just a few steps away.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2010-03-27-iraq_N.htm