First Tallies Show Iraqi PM Locked in Tight Race

(March 12) -- Iraq's prime minister has a slight edge over his top secular rival in early and incomplete results from last weekend's election, but officials say the race is so close it could be weeks before Iraqis know who'll shepherd them into a new era as American troops begin to leave.

Sunday's parliamentary election was Iraq's second in the seven years since Saddam Hussein's ouster, and the first to decide who'll rule Iraq once U.S. soldiers are gone. They've already retreated to massive military bases in Iraq, and Washington plans to pull out half of its nearly 100,000 troops by summer's end. The rest would leave by the end of 2011. Earlier this week, the top U.S. general in Iraq said the election went well enough to keep that goal on track.

A key step toward real self-governance, the election also tests Iraq's commitment to finding consensus among warring factions in a country of 28 million -- and to transferring power peacefully.

The challenge for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim who's held office since 2006, was to try to reach across Iraq's sectarian divide and win votes from Sunni Muslims, who've largely been resentful of his Shiite-dominated regime.

Iraq has a Shiite majority overall. Sunni Muslims held disproportionate power under their coreligionist Saddam, but Shiite parties swept control after his fall. Many Sunnis now complain of discrimination under al-Maliki and accused an election panel of intentionally disqualifying many of their candidates in the lead-up to these polls.

Vote tallies are in for only five of Iraq's 18 provinces. So far, al-Maliki's State of Law coalition has a 16-point lead over the Iraqi National Alliance, another bloc of Shiite parties. But the Iraqiya list, a diverse secular alliance led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, is well ahead in two northern provinces with Sunni majorities.

More results are expected later today, though Iraqi officials have promised to release more vote tallies and subsequently delayed such announcements all week.

While ballots are being counted, allegations of fraud have emerged. One of Allawi's deputies held a news conference Thursday and displayed photos he said showed ballots abandoned in a schoolyard in the mixed northern city of Kirkuk. "Votes for the Iraqiya list are in the garbage," said Baghdad candidate Adnan al-Janabi. He told reporters he did not know the extent of the alleged fraud. "One or one million, we don't know."

Others accused workers at Iraq's election commission of fiddling with vote tallies while they entered data into computer systems. Iraqi media also carried a report of more than 200,000 soldiers' names -- mostly Sunnis -- missing from voting rosters.

The Sunni-Shiite divide is the biggest of several fissures that have torn apart Iraqi society and stymied unity since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Washington hopes to help heal the rift in time to leave behind a stable democracy when U.S. troops depart next year.

Even if al-Maliki does retain power, he'll likely have to build a new coalition, possibly with a more powerful role for Allawi -- a process that could take months. Al-Maliki wasn't sworn in for five months after the 2005 election.

"It is a very close race," an unnamed Western official told The New York Times after seeing some early returns. He spoke on condition of anonymity since only Iraqi officials were authorized to release them. "Whatever the end results, we know it will be a fierce struggle to form a government."

Another question going into Sunday's polls was about turnout -- whether Sunni Muslims would vote this time around, after largely staying home from the last parliamentary polls in 2005. The Sunni boycott ultimately strengthened Shiites' grasp on power and fueled Sunni resentment of the government in which they had little say. That, in turn, led to more violence, with tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in subsequent years.

Sunni insurgent groups threatened voters to stay away from the polls this year, as in 2005, with one al-Qaida-linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq, vowing to kill anyone who dared to vote. Attacks on election day killed at least 36 people, but the country was spared large-scale bombings and violence that used to be quite common there.

Officials estimate that 62 percent of Iraq's 19 million eligible voters went to the polls Sunday -- a proportion greater than in most U.S. elections. Still, turnout was lower than in 2005, when about 76 percent of Iraqi voters went to the polls. Officials attributed the relatively low turnout to a combination of voter intimidation and stricter ID requirements at polling stations.

The last time Iraqis went to the polls was in February 2009, to elect candidates for local offices. But Sunday's voting was only the second parliamentary election since Saddam's fall, and the first under full Iraqi sovereignty. American diplomats and soldiers were still assisting in the country's day-to-day business in 2005.