March
13, 2010
BAGHDAD,— Seizing on an early lead in Iraq's
election, the prime minister's political coalition
began reaching out to rivals Friday as partial
results signaled a tight race that was unlikely to
produce a clear-cut winner.
It's doubtful that Nouri al-Maliki — even if he
keeps his job — will be able to build a seamless
government from political parties separated by
sectarian fault lines and Shiite rivalries.
That would mean more political instability as
American forces prepare to withdraw and further
setbacks to efforts to reconcile Iraq's fractured
ethnic and sectarian communities.
The count for all of Iraq's 18 provinces, including
all-important Baghdad, was not expected for days,
and the outcome of the March 7 parliamentary vote
was far from certain.
The process also has been marred by fraud
allegations, many of which came from one of the
Shiite prime minister's main challengers, a secular
Iraqiya list led by former Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi.
But the nation's Independent High Electoral
Commission has released partial results from seven
provinces that showed al-Maliki's bloc leading in
three, ahead of Allawi's group, which was winning in
two, and an Iran-backed Shiite religious grouping in
another.
The Kurdish Alliance, as expected, won Erbil
province in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region in
Iraq's north.
After all the returns are in, if no bloc wins a
majority, the president would ask the bloc with the
largest number of seats in parliament to form a
coalition government.
Al-Maliki's State of Law coalition — which he formed
after breaking with longtime Shiite power broker the
Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, also known as SIIC —
was emboldened enough by strong showings in Babil,www.ekurd.netNajaf
and Muthanna provinces to pursue a rapprochement
with rivals he may need to build a new government.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
AP
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