By Caroline Alexander and Daniel Williams (Corrects name of Iraqi vice president in 10th paragraph.) March 13 (Bloomberg) — An alliance led by Iraq’s incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki leads in Baghdad and four other provinces, partial results from the March 7 parliamentary elections show, giving him the upper hand in trying to form a new government. Al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-based State of Law bloc opened talks with rival groups to form a governing coalition, party official Ali al-Adeed said after the Independent High Electoral Commission released limited results from nine of the 18 provinces. “We have taken the initiative to start negotiations to form a government,” he said on the organization’s Web site. No party or bloc is likely to win half the 325 seats at stake. Rivals are generally winning in areas of core sectarian support, according to the first tallies. State of Law and the rival Shiite Iraqi National Alliance are splitting most ballots cast by Shiites, the majority voting group. State of Law is ahead in the southern Shiite provinces of Najaf, Babil, Karbala, and Muthanna, the electoral commission said. The Iraqi National Alliance is leading in Shiite Maysan province in the far southeast and finishing second to Maliki’s coalition in the other Shiite provinces. The Iraqiya coalition of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi , which appealed to minority Sunni Muslims, was ahead in largely Sunni Diyala and Salahdin. The Kurdistan Alliance led in the Kurdish province of Erbil. “The vote won’t produce a decisive winner and there will have to be bargaining for a ruling coalition,” Marina Ottaway , an analyst at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a telephone interview. Challenge Uncertainty challenges President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce U.S. troop strength in Iraq from 96,000 to 50,000 by August. Violence may increase if Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds aren’t all included in a governing coalition, said Ahmed Ali, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy . Iraqi media have predicted a tight race between Allawi’s Iraqiya, which campaigned on a non-sectarian platform, and al- Maliki, who also presented himself as a national leader. In Baghdad, Iraq’s capital and biggest city, State of Law led both the Iraqi National Alliance and Iraqiya by about 50,000 votes. Only 18 percent of ballots were counted so far. Baghdad is a mixed city of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish voters. Besides al-Maliki’s State of Law, other coalitions are actively seeking coalition partners. Ammar al-Hakim , a top official in the Iraqi National Alliance, told Samaria TV, an Iraqi satellite channel, that he had informed the Kurdistan Alliance of his group’s “commitment in allying with them.” Disputes Ahead Allawi met yesterday with the country’s Shiite Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi , who belongs to the Iraqi National Alliance, for talks to “contribute in forming a government,” a statement from Iraq’s presidential press office said. It may take months of negotiations to form a coalition cabinet, analysts predicted. The government that emerges will face disputes over sharing oil revenue among regions and whether to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region, as well as coping with hostilities between Shiites and Sunnis. Iraq pumped about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day last month, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its 115 billion- barrel reserves are behind only Saudi Arabia and Iran. The U.S., which led a 2003 invasion to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein , is scheduled to pull out all its troops by the end of 2011. Fraud Complaints Complaints of fraud complicate the outcome. Even before results were released March 11, Allawi’s alliance expressed doubts about the count. “There are lots of violations,” Iraqiya member Adnan Janabi told Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language television channel. “I think they are still going on.” Interior Minister Jawad al-Boulani , who is running with the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Unity Coalition, told Beirut-based Sumaria TV that ballot boxes “were being transferred in suspicious circumstances.” A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq , Said Arikat , dismissed the fraud charges as unrepresentative. He said that technical problems delayed the quick release of early results. “Politicians can say what they want,” he said by telephone from Baghdad. “We have no reports of problems.” It’s not clear whether the complaints represent the maneuvers of losers or reflect concerns that could spread and revive sectarian and ethnic violence. Sunni groups spearheaded an anti-U.S. insurgency after the 2003 invasion and also fought what was close to a civil war with Shiites. There have also been clashes between rival Shiite groups, and tensions between Arabs and Kurds. The Iraqi army and a Kurdish militia face each other across oil fields in the north, where the Kurds claim territory to add to their autonomous region. To contact the reporters on this story: Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net ; Daniel Williams in Cairo at dwilliams41@bloomberg.net .
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Al-Maliki Leads in Baghdad, Four Iraqi Provinces, Partial Results Indicate
