Early results show Al Maliki leading in two provinces

Dubai: Preliminary results from Iraq's national election began to trickle in yesterday, showing Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki ahead in the country's largely Shiite south.

Preliminary results from the electoral commission, the first to be released, showed Al Maliki ahead in Najaf and Babil provinces south of Baghdad.

But full initial results from across Iraq's 18 provinces, including areas where support is expected to be strong for Al Maliki's rivals, were still unknown four days after a national election Iraqis hoped would bring stable government and help end years of sectarian conflict as US troops get ready to leave.

Analysts in Baghdad told Gulf News that it is too early to predict the shape of the new government.

"Even though the bloc of Al Maliki, the State of Law, seems to have emerged as the biggest winner from this election, this does not mean that it will have a free hand to rule the country," said Mohsin Al Jaberi, an Iraqi political analyst. According to Al Jaberi, no single bloc will get a majority, which is 163 seats out of the 325 seats in the parliament, so an alliance will have to be formed.

Al Jaberi said the election of the President will be more difficult because the two major Kurdish groups that allied themselves with Al Maliki in exchange for the presidency in 2006 seem to have lost their strength in the new parliament because of an off-shoot Kurdish group that split the Kurdish vote.

‘Self-centric'

The election of the President requires the agreement of at least 217 MPs.

Al Jaberi said Al Maliki's bloc was expected to win 80 to 90 seats in the parliament.

"Those who allied with Al Maliki in 2006 will most probably not do so this time, because most of the decisions he took while in power were made without proper consultation, with his partners feeling he is self-centric."