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Iraq’s election race tight as results delayed again
The race may remain too close to call until initial results are posted for all of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including pivotal areas like Baghdad, the ethnically and religiously diverse capital city that is home to at least 6 million people.
Initial results for five provinces have been released so far, showing Maliki’s State of Law coalition ahead of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition of powerful Shiite parties -- but only by about 16 percent.
The picture following Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary poll, a milestone seven years after Saddam Hussein’s ouster, was further muddled by another delay by Iraqi electoral officials in giving complete initial results and by growing accusations of fraud.
Complaints of serious fraud mark an inauspicious start to what will likely be long, fractious talks to form Iraq’s next government. Violence may have receded, but it lurks under the surface in a country where sectarian wounds have not healed and major questions about land and oil remain unsettled.
Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya list, a cross-sectarian, secularist alliance, was well ahead in two northern provinces home to large numbers of minority Sunnis.
Officials at the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said more results would likely be released on Friday.
Hamdiya al-Husseini, a top IHEC official, dismissed charges of serious fraud coming from Allawi’s camp, including reports that ballots were discovered in the garbage and more than 200,000 soldiers’ names were missing from voting rosters.
“The process of counting and sorting ballots is going well, with the presence of observers from political parties and under international supervision,” Husseini said.
United Nations officials, who are advising IHEC, downplayed the reports of fraud.
The coming period is crucial for the Obama administration, facing an escalating war in Afghanistan, as it plans to halve its troop force by Sept. 1 and withdraw fully by end-2011.
Kurds win 64 seats in Iraq’s general elections
Kurdish sources told Today’s Zaman that the Kurdish lists won 64 seats in Iraq’s general election. Four Kurdish lists participated in Iraq’s parliamentary elections, which took place on March 7. The Kurdistan coalition list won 46 seats, divided between Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) (33 seats) and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) (13 seats). The Gorran (change) list came in second place with 11 seats. The Kurdistan Islamic Union came in third place and got five seats, and the Islamic group earned two seats. These results were reported by Kurdish officials in the region and are informal; they will be confirmed once more information is released from the election authorities. The total number of seats in Iraq’s National Assembly is 325.
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