Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said today the Iraqi National Assembly should work with the Sunni community to create a government and constitution after Sunni political parties boycotted the country's election.

``It is time to put the divisions of our past behind us,'' Allawi said in a statement to the press aired live by broadcasters including Sky News. ``Let us march forward together -- Sunni and Shiites, Muslims and Christians, Arab and Kurds and Turkomen.''

An estimated 8 million Iraqis yesterday voted for a 275- strong National Assembly that will draft a permanent constitution and prepare for a general election at the end of the year. Secular parties such as Allawi's Iraqi List coalition and the Kurdish Alliance may have gained the most support in the election, according to interviews with voters and an opinion poll.

Shiite Muslims account for about 60 percent of Iraq's population. Sunni Muslims and Kurds each account for about 20 percent. The country's main Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, withdrew from the race Dec. 27 citing unfair and unsafe conditions, raising concerns over the legitimacy of the outcome.

New Institutions

``Sunnis can't feel as though they are excluded in creating the institutions of a new government,'' said Sajjan Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation that advises the European Union on counter- terrorism. ``Certainly, if they don't play a role now, they may never do so and that could lead to problems in the future, like civil war.''

More voters than expected cast their ballots in defiance of deadly attacks and threats of violence by insurgents, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said. The Iraqi government had imposed tight security measures, which analysts such as Gohel say prevented ``mass casualties,'' including a ban on cars, travel restrictions, and the closure of international borders.

A series of suicide bombings and mortar attacks at polling stations during the day in Baghdad and other areas killed about 44 people, AP reported. Seven ``foreign fighters'' were arrested as they tried to attack polling centers, Allawi said today.

Oil Falls

Crude oil fell to its lowest in more than two weeks in New York after the election passed without further pipeline sabotage or disruption of oil supplies.

Initial results will be released in stages during the next six days and the final result will be announced within 10 days, the Electoral Commission's Farid Ayar said yesterday.

A poll by the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan U.S. research group, showed that about 60 percent of Iraqis said Allawi has been effective since taking office. The survey was based on 1,848 valid interviews conducted from Jan. 13 to Jan. 24 in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces and had a margin or error of 3 percentage points.

Voter Turnout

Turnout ran as high as 80 percent in the southern Shiite cities of Najaf and Basra, al-Arabiya television said, citing its correspondents. Polling centers in parts of the Sunni stronghold of west-central Iraq didn't open or had few voters, residents told the Associated Press. While official figures aren't yet available, other assessments were upbeat.

``I hear that the turnout in Mosul and in Fallujah has been are greater than we had expected, which is a very encouraging thing,'' Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister who heads the Iraqi Independent Democrats slate of candidates, said on Cable News Network. Mosul, in northern Iraq, and Fallujah, west of Baghdad, are mainly Sunni cities.

``The residents of Mosul came out to vote, and that is a very good sign,'' said Asia-Pacific Foundation's Gohel. ``If the Sunnis feel they will play a meaningful role in Iraq, then that would alienate the insurgents and their impact would be reduced.''

Mosul and Fallujah have produced some of the deadliest violence by rebels.

Annan Reaction

The success of the election augurs well for the transition process in Iraq, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a statement.

``It is important to ensure that all individual, groups and parties who, for whatever reason, were unable or unwilling to take part in the election are now brought into the constitution-making process,'' Annan said.

Ammar al-Hakim, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, told Qatar-based al- Jazeera television that the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest political group in the race, is set to win the most votes in Baghdad and the southern provinces.

The alliance includes all the country's Shiite parties and movements, Sciri among them, as well as some Sunni Muslim, Christian and Kurdish groups, and is backed by Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Ayatollah's Thanks

``Grand Ayatollah Sistani thanks the Iraqi people for going to the polls,'' Agence France-Presse cited Ayatollah Ahmed al-Safi, a spokesman, as saying in Najaf. Al-Sistani, 74, was born in Iran and was unable to participate in the election.

The fact that Iraqis turned out in ``such large numbers to vote,'' bodes well for secular parties such as Allawi's Iraqi list and Interim President Ghazi al-Yawar's Iraqi People party, Asia Pacific Gohel's said.

Iraqis abroad began voting Jan. 28 in 14 countries from Australia to Iran to the U.S., and turnout reached 65.9 percent, or 186,619 voters of those registered, in the first two days, the Web site of the Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program showed.

A total of 7,785 men and women registered to run for the assembly, representing 111 entities, including political parties and coalition and individual candidates.

Iraq is treated as one constituency and members of the assembly will be elected according to the proportional vote their slates receive. Iraqis also voted today for 18 provincial councils and a 105-member regional parliament in the Kurdish north.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net; Dania Saadi in the Dubai bureau on at dsaadi2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 31, 2005 07:28 EST