Iraqi political alliances rushed to meet yesterday's deadline for submitting candidate lists for parliamentary elections scheduled for December 15.

The main Shia and Kurdish coalitions, which currently dominate parliament, are seeking to maintain their lead in a contest in which voters are expected to vote largely along ethnic and sectarian lines.

However, some leading Shia politicians, including Ahmed Chalabi, have broken away from the main coalition, while several new Sunni blocs and a renewed bid for power by the former prime minister Iyad Allawi are likely to deliver a more divided body than the one that emerged after January's elections

A final list of coalitions was not announced yesterday, but representatives from the United Iraqi Alliance's main constituents, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Dawa party, said they would maintain the pan-Shia coalition that won them 140 of parliament's 275 seats in January.

Followers of the radical Shia cleric Moqtadaal-Sadr also said their group was planning to join thealliance.

According to preliminary reports, the list organisers awarded 30 listings to Sciri, 30 to the different branches of Dawa, and 30 seats to the Sadrists, with other seats going to smaller parties and to independents.

The alliance was formed despite rivalries between Sciri and the Dawa party as well as enmity between the Sadrists and Sciri.

Despite the mutual hostility, a unified list would benefit by reaping the votes of those who are anxious to maintain the Shia majority's newly established political dominance, but disaffected with the current parties' failure to provide services or security.

However, the alliance this time lacks the endorsement of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shia's most influential cleric, who helped to found the Alliance in late 2004 and whose implicit blessing was deemed a major factor in its success.

Meanwhile, Shia voters will also be wooed by a newly formed coalition of independents.

Kurdish leaders announced that the Kurdistan Democratic party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and several smaller parties would maintain the coalition that won them 75 seats in the last assembly, minus the small Islamic Union of Kurdistan, which said it would run separately.

The Sunni, meanwhile, many of whom boycotted January's elections, were divided into what one western official called Islamist and nationalist blocs.

The former encompasses the Iraqi Islamic partyand other religiouslyorientated parties and the latter involves more secular and hardline anti-occupation voices, such as the in­dependent politician Salah al-Mutlek.