Shia–Sunni relations
Shia–Sunni discord in Iraq starts with disagreement over the relative population of the two groups. According to most sources, including the CIA's "World Factbook", the majority of Iraqis are Shia Arab Muslims (60%-70%), and Sunni Arab Muslims represent between 32% and 37% of the population. However, Sunni are split ethnically among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Many Sunnis hotly dispute their minority status, including ex-Iraqi Ambassador Faruq Ziada, and many believe Shia majority is "a myth spread by America". One Sunni belief shared by Jordan's King Abdullah as well as his then Defense Minister Shaalan is that Shia numbers in Iraq were inflated by Iranian Shias crossing the border. Shia scholar Vali Nasr believes the election turnout in summer and December 2005 confirmed a strong Shia majority in Iraq.
2010 Iraqi parliamentary election
The Iraqi Accord Front, more commonly known as al-Tawafuq is a Sunni Islamist list which was the main Sunni coalition in 2005, winning 15% and 44 seats as an alliance between the Iraqi Islamic Party, the General Council for the People of Iraq (Iraqi People's Gathering) and the Iraqi National Dialogue Council. Since then the Iraqi National Dialogue Council left the alliance and after disappointing results in 2009, the Iraqi Islamic Party's leader Tariq al-Hashemi resigned from his position and left the party to create his own party and join al-Iraqiyya. The alliance still includes several independent candidates and the Sunni Islamist, Turkmen Justice Party. In 2009 Tawafuq was still the largest Sunni list with 32 seats however they received less than 25% of the votes they received in 2005 and lost in their main stronghold, the al-Anbar governorate. Meanwhile, the parties which would later form al-Iraqiyya won over 70 seats.