Baghdad: Former premier Eyad Allawi’s secular bloc won the most seats in Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary election, edging incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s coalition, official results showed on Friday night.
Allawi’s Iraqiya list won two seats more than Al Maliki’s State of Law Alliance but failed to win an overall majority, with Allawi pledging after the results to “work with all sides” to form a government.
Al Maliki, however, refused to accept the results, telling a press conference in Baghdad following the release of the figures that they remained “preliminary”.
“The election results are not final,” said the Prime Minister, who has called for a nationwide manual recount of votes, alleging irregularities in the counting process.
Security officials have warned a long period of coalition building could give insurgents and Al Qaida a chance to further destabilise Iraq.
The US ambassador to Baghdad and the top American military commander in Iraq, in a joint statement, gave their blessing to the outcome.
“We support the findings of international and independent Iraqi observers, who ... have found that there is no evidence of widespread or serious fraud,” said ambassador Christopher Hill and General Ray Odierno.
The results come around five months before the United States is due to withdraw all of its combat troops from Iraq, and Washington will be keen to see a smooth outcome.
“We will work with all sides, whether they won or did not win in the election, to form the next government,” Allawi said in a television interview immediately after the results were announced.
First opportunity
The results released by Iraq’s election commission in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone showed Allawi won 91 seats in the nationwide poll, the second since Saddam Hussain was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.
State of Law won 89 seats in the 325-member parliament, followed by the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition led by Shiite religious groups, with 70 seats.
Kurdistania, comprising the autonomous Kurdish region’s two long-dominant blocs, won 43 seats.
Allawi’s victory signals he will be given the first opportunity to form a government, which would require a coalition holding at least a majority of 163 seats.
