SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The entrenched leadership of the Kurdistan region of Iraq was shaken Sunday by what appeared to be a stronger than expected showing in regional elections by a new opposition coalition.

Based on unofficial results, officials with one of the two governing parties conceded that they faced a very serious challenge from the upstart Gorran coalition in Sulaimaniya, one of the biggest cities in Kurdistan.

Officials with Gorran — which means “change” in Kurdish — said their preliminary results showed that they received about 51 percent of the vote in Sulaimaniya in the race for seats in the regional Parliament.

Final results are expected this week, but the parties compiled their own by adding the results posted at each polling station after the election on Saturday.

If the party tallies are confirmed, Gorran will have mounted the first meaningful challenge to the authority of the two parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or K.D.P., and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., since the semiautonomous regional government was established in 1991.

After a local television station reported a preliminary count, dozens of Gorran supporters trickled into the streets here to celebrate.

Even so, there was little doubt that the two-party governing coalition would maintain its hold on power. Officials with the coalition said they had won at least 62 percent of the vote regionwide, more than enough for the parliamentary majority needed to form a new government. They said they also remained firmly in control of the powerful regional presidency, held by Massoud Barzani.

But governing coalition officials said they remained neck and neck with Gorran in Sulaimaniya. They were still hoping that results would tip in their favor after about 104,000 ballots cast mainly by soldiers and security force members in special voting last Thursday were counted on Monday.

Even a narrow victory would be a blow for the governing coalition, and many here are already predicting a messy and tense era for Kurdish politics.

“It is historic because there was opposition and the authorities were in a defensive position,” said Aram Sheik-Mohammed, a Kurdish civil society activist.

Gorran, led by Nawshirwan Mustafa, 65, a former P.U.K. insider, ran on a platform of shaking up the two-party monopoly, which many Kurds consider autocratic and corrupt. Popular support for Gorran would indicate a strong current of disenchantment with the government, despite the fact that many Kurds give it credit for the region’s prosperity and security.

A Gorran adviser said the coalition expected to win about 40 seats in the 111-member Parliament, which has been viewed as a rubber stamp for governing parties’ decisions. But more conservative estimates put Gorran’s share at 25 to 30 seats.

Internal dissension in Kurdish politics could also weaken the region in its battles with Baghdad over the fate of disputed territories and the sharing of budget revenues and oil and gas resources.

Jalal Talabani, the P.U.K. chairman, who also holds the post of Iraqi president, was alarmed Sunday by the preliminary counts in Sulaimaniya, his home city, and summoned the party’s leadership to his mountaintop residence overlooking the city.

“He is concerned,” said his son, Qubad Talabani, the region’s Washington envoy, who is currently in Kurdistan. “He wants to know what happened.”

One local analyst described the Gorran coalition as a hodgepodge of disgruntled former P.U.K. leaders like Mr. Mustafa, ultranationalist pesh merga military commanders and a smattering of leftists, intellectuals and independents. Many Gorran supporters remain members of the P.U.K.

These disparate groups were united mainly by dissatisfaction with the status quo, and it is far from clear whether Gorran can turn that rejection into a cohesive opposition movement.

But many Kurds consider the governing parties — which control the government, the security forces and the economy — rife with corruption, nepotism and cronyism. These sentiments appeared to cut across class and age lines.

In the working-class neighborhood of Kani Kurda in Sulaimaniya, resentment was particularly high among the young, who said that the only way they could improve their lot and get good-paying jobs was through sponsorship from governing party officials.

“There is no justice,” said Hawkar Jabar, 24, who voted for Gorran.

And in the upscale neighborhood of Tuymalik, Alan Nihad, 33, said he had to be endorsed by a P.U.K. party official in order to be certified as an orthopedic surgeon. He, his bother and parents, all surgeons, voted Gorran.

“There should be opposition,” said his mother, Nasreen Abdul-Rahim, 59. “It will be better for the people.”

Joseph Sywenkyj contributed reporting.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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