The Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance won almost half the vote
The party, which won the 30 January election with 48% of the vote, was allocated 140 seats.
The Kurdish parties, which came second in the poll, have 75 seats and interim PM Iyad Allawi's party gets 40 seats.
The new 275-seat National Assembly will now have to choose a president and two vice-presidents, who will then decide on a prime minister and cabinet.
'Extremely successful'
Chief UN election adviser, Carlos Valenzuela, congratulated those involved with making the election happen.
OFFICIAL RESULTS Nearly 8.5 million Iraqis voted, 58% of the registered electorate
"The elections were not perfect, they were never meant to be, but they were extremely successful," he said.
Iraq's electoral commission announced the results of the election on 13 February.
It has spent the last few days considering complaints arising from the elections.
Election commission spokesman Farid Ayar told al-Arabiya television that 47 complaints had been filed and most were resolved.
As dozens of parties failed to win enough votes to gain parliamentary seats, those who were elected to parliament gained a larger proportion of seats than their vote suggested.
Coalition deal
The United Iraqi Alliance will have to form coalitions with other parties to govern, as a two-thirds majority of delegates is needed to pass legislation in the new parliament.
This will mean weeks, perhaps months, of negotiations before a new Iraqi government is confirmed in office, says the BBC's Jon Leyne in Baghdad.
MPs' first job will be to appoint a presidential council, made up of a president and two vice-presidents.
They will in turn appoint a prime minister - the most important position in the new government - and a cabinet.
Members of the alliance party - which is made up of a coalition of Shia parties - have been meeting this week to discuss their candidate for prime minister.
The current interim Vice-President, Ibrahim Jaafari, is seen as a favourite although he is being challenged by Ahmed Chalabi, who once had close ties with the Pentagon but has since lost US support.
Mr Jaafari told reporters talks on the issue would continue for "a couple more days".
How the new assembly stands


Final figures from Baghdad today showed that the Shia United Iraqi Alliance has won a slight majority in the new Iraqi National Assembly. The party took 140 out of the 275 seats in the Assembly. 

The major opposition party will be the ''Kurdish Alliance'', which took 75 seats. The third largest party will be that of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party, which won 40 seats.   

Reports in U.S. media say that many Sunni voters stayed away from the polls either because of a fear of violence or to support the call by some radical clerics to boycott the elections. As a result, the Sunni-led Iraqis Party won only five seats in parliament. The results are summarized in the following table:




Seats 

Percentage 

 Party/Population Group



140 

51% 

 United Iraqi Alliance/Shiite 



40 

15% 

 Allawi's Party/Shiite



75 

27%  

 Kurdish Alliance/Kurdish



5 

2% 

 Iraqis Party/Sunni



15 

5% 

 Other



275 

100% 

 Total



Chief UN election adviser, Carlos Valenzuela, congratulated those involved with the election. He commented that "The elections were not perfect, they were never meant to be, but they were extremely successful."

There were fears before the election in international circles that a low turnout could jepordise the legitimacy of the new assembly. However, nearly 8.5 million Iraqis voted - 58% of the registered electorate.   As noted previously, the turnout percentage did vary significantly among the various population groups.  By combining the two different Shiite parties and comparing to estimated population groups in Iraq we find:




Percent ofParliament 

Estimated PopulationPercentage 

 Population Group



65% 

40%-50% 

 Shiite 



27% 

15%-20%  

 Kurdish



2% 

32%-37% 

 Sunni



5% 

3%-5% 

 Other



100% 

90%-112% 

 Total



The Shiite and Kurdish groups had more than 80% turnout whereas the Sunni group had a turnout under 4%.  The low turnout by Sunni voters resulted in much higher representative success for both the Shiite and Kurdish groups in the parliament.