total, twelve parties received enough votes to win a seat in the assembly. The majority of the 111 lists that competed in the election did not win seats. The most prominent party to be excluded was the secular, but predominantly Sunni, Independent Democrats Movement led by former exile Adnan Pachachi. It only received some 12,000 votes. Other prominent parties that failed to win seats include the monarchist Constitutional Monarchy Movement, and the Movement of Free Military Officers and Civilians. Aftermath On 5 April 2005, the Iraqi Transitional National Assembly appointed Jalal Talabani, a prominent Kurdish leader, President. It also appointed Adel Abdul Mehdi, a Shiite Arab, and Ghazi al-Yawar, the former Interim President and a Sunni Arab, as Vice Presidents. Ibrahim al-Jaafari a Shiite, whose United Iraq Alliance Party won the largest share of the vote, was appointed the new Prime Minister of Iraq. Most power was vested in him. The new government was faced with two major tasks. The first was to attempt to rein in a violent insurgency, which had blighted the country in recent months, killing many Iraqi civilians and officials as well as a number of American troops. (As of mid-2005, approximately 135,000 American troops remained in Iraq with 2,214 American soldiers killed.) The second major task was to re-engage in the writing of a new Iraqi constitution, as outlined above, to replace the Transitional Administrative Law of 2004. References External links Zaid Al-Ali, The Struggle for Iraq's Future, Yale University Press (2014) The Economist: Iraqi legislative election who's who (pay site) BBC: Questions and Answers on the Iraqi election, Discussion of some of the main lists and candidates Full results by governorate Iraq 2005 elections in Iraq 2005 01 January 2005 events in Iraq