Iraq's PM extends lead in vote count

15/03/2010 | 05:55 AM

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is on track to claim several key Iraqi provinces, bolstering his chances of keeping his job after an election crucial to ending years of bloody unrest.

A day after emerging in pole position in Baghdad, Maliki's State of Law Alliance held strong leads in two of Iraq's three biggest constituencies and was ahead in seven of the 18 provinces overall, although the figures were far from complete.

The results from the second parliamentary election since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 come less than six months ahead of a US downsizing in which all American combat troops will leave the country by the end of August.

Maliki, a Shi'ite who portrayed himself as the leader who restored Iraq's security, was given comfortable leads in the oil-rich province of Basra, the third-biggest constituency, and the southern province of Karbala. Both provinces are mostly Shi'ite.

State of Law leads in Baghdad, whose 70 seats account for more than a fifth of Iraq's 325-member Council of Representatives, as well as Babil, Najaf, Wasit and Muthanna.

The latter four provinces are southern, predominantly Shi'ite areas.

Opposition blocs have alleged fraud in the March 7 polls and in the ballot counting, but Maliki dismissed the claims, describing complaints as being "very small".

"The complaints... cannot affect the results," the premier told Iraq's National Security Council in remarks broadcast on television and distributed in a statement from his office.

The television appearance was Maliki's first since last week's election and since his office said he had undergone surgery in a Baghdad hospital for an unspecified ailment.

Sunday's results were met with a frantic reaction in the national election commission's press room, as results from three provinces were put on one elevated flat-screen television.

Election officials were unable to show all the figures on the screen, sparking shouts of anger from assembled journalists who were furiously taking notes. Vote tabulation has been slowed by persistent computer crashes.

Meanwhile, separate sets of figures released on Sunday showed secular ex-premier Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite like Maliki, was ahead in the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk, against the expectations of analysts who had predicted a win by a Kurdish bloc.

Allawi was also leading in the Sunni bastion of Anbar, Iraq's biggest province by geography. That brought to five the number of provinces in which his Iraqiya bloc was in pole position as he also held leads in Nineveh, Iraq's second-biggest constituency, and the predominantly Sunni central provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin.

The INA was ahead in the mostly Shi'ite southern provinces of Maysan, Diwaniyah and Dhi Qar.

Despite State of Law's success, analysts have cautioned that rival political groupings could still manoeuvre to form a coalition government without it.

Iraq's proportional representation electoral system makes it unlikely any single grouping will clinch the 163 seats needed to govern on its own.

Complete results are expected on March 18 and the final ones - after appeals - will probably come at the end of the month.