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Iraq results show PM's bloc set to be
biggest
16.3.2010 |
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March
16, 2010
BAGHDAD, —
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's bloc looked
likely to form parliament's single largest grouping
Tuesday, after results showed the incumbent had
strengthened his hold on key Baghdad province.
Maliki's success in the capital, which accounts for
more than twice as many seats as any other province,
builds on his lead in seven provinces overall, and
is a major boost for his bid to retain the top job.
Maliki's main rival, secular ex-premier Iyad Allawi,
leads in five provinces, with two-thirds of votes
having been counted nationwide.
Officials have pleaded for patience and said that
updated results, based on 85 percent of ballots
counted, would be posted later on Tuesday.
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Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. AFP photo |
The election -- the
second since Saddam Hussein was ousted in the US-led
invasion of 2003 -- comes less than six months
before the United States is set to withdraw all of
its combat troops from Iraq.
Preliminary results, based on 60 percent of ballots
counted in Baghdad, showed Maliki's State of Law
Alliance held a 65,000-vote lead over Allawi's
Iraqiya bloc with the Iraqi National Alliance (INA),
a coalition of Shiite religious groups, a distant
third.
Maliki, a Shiite who has sought to portray himself
as the man who restored Iraq's security, also holds
leads in the oil-rich province of Basra, the
third-biggest in Iraq, as well as five predominantly
Shiite provinces south of Baghdad.
Despite State of Law's success, however, analysts
have cautioned that rival political groupings could
still manoeuvre to form a coalition government
without it.
While State of Law has said it has established a
committee to enter talks with blocs to form a
government, Intisar Allawi, a senior Iraqiya
candidate, said on Monday the grouping had held its
own talks with the INA and the main Kurdish bloc,
which she described as "very good and positive."
Iraq's proportional representation system makes it
unlikely that any single group will clinch the 163
seats needed to form a government on its own, and
protracted coalition building is likely.
Opposition groups have alleged fraud in the election
and the count, but Maliki dismissed the claims in
televised remarks to Iraq's National Security
Council broadcast late on Sunday,www.ekurd.nethis
first public appearance since his office announced
on Thursday that he had undergone surgery for an
unspecified ailment.
Election officials have also downplayed allegations
of fraud.
Faraj al-Haidari, head of the national election
commission, told reporters the number of complaints
in the general election was less than half those
filed during provincial polls in January 2009.
Vote tallies have so far been released to chaotic
scenes at the commission's data entry centre in
Baghdad's Green Zone, with several provinces often
published at once onto a single television screen,
usually leaving some out of view, sparking shouts of
anger from assembled journalists and observers.
Figures released on Monday showed Allawi, a Shiite
Arab like Maliki, was narrowly ahead in the northern
oil province of Kirkuk, defying predictions of a win
for the Kurdish bloc which wants to incorporate
Kirkuk into autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan in the north.
Related article: Protracted vote count sparks fraud
claims
Iraqiya is also leading in Nineveh, Iraq's
second-largest province around the main northern
city of Mosul, as well as the mostly Sunni provinces
of Anbar, Diyala and Salaheddin.
The INA, meanwhile, is ahead in three Shiite
southern provinces while Kurdistania, an alliance of
the two main Kurdish former rebel factions, was
ahead in all three of Kurdistan's provinces.
Security officials have expressed concern a lengthy
period of coalition building could give insurgent
groups and Al-Qaeda an opportunity to further
destabilise Iraq.
Their worries were illustrated when a double-blast
suicide bomber targeting a military checkpoint and
labourers killed eight people and wounded 28 other
civilians on Monday, in Fallujah in Anbar province.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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