Iraq, March 24: Ten powerful local politicians, all backers of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, demanded a manual recount on Thursday from Iraq’s March 7 election as hundreds of supporters took to the streets.
The country’s election commission has already rebuffed a recount demand from the incumbent premier himself over the weekend, when he said it was needed to maintain stability and ward off violence.
“If the commission does not respond to the demand of the provincial councils … the 10 provinces will begin a major escalation of measures,” the 10 local government heads said in a statement after talks in the southern city of Basra.
Without spelling out the measures, they urged the election commission to authorise a manual recount of votes due to what they said was possible fraud and “manipulation” of the general election results.
The provincial council chiefs were from nine mostly Shiite provinces in southern Iraq and from Baghdad, all of them members of the prime minister’s State of Law Alliance.
Wednesday’s meeting followed a similar gathering on Sunday between the governors of the same 10 provinces held in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, when they too backed Maliki’s stand.
On Sunday, the election commission said it had not seen any widespread fraud in the election, making any recount unnecessary.
It said political parties and groups would have to submit evidence of wrongdoing to substantiate any complaints before the full results are announced on Friday, nearly three weeks after the election.
According to results released by the commission based on 95 percent of votes cast, Maliki’s State of Law Alliance is running neck-and-neck with the Iraqiya list of ex-premier Iyad Allawi, a fellow Shiite.
The latter is seen by his opponents in southern Iraq as a symbol of the return of executed president Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
Allawi was a member of the ruling party until the mid-1970s but left it and became the target of intimidation tactics by Saddam’s regime while living in exile in London.
In the mostly Shiite cities of Basra, Nasiriyah, Najaf, and Hilla on Wednesday, hundreds of people took to the streets to demonstrate support for Maliki’s call for a recount.
In the port city of Basra, 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of the capital, protesters gathered outside the provincial government’s offices with placards that read: “We demand a recount.”
“No, no to fraud. Yes, yes to Maliki. Yes, yes to Iraq,” they shouted in unison outside the building where the influential local politicians were meeting.
No single bloc which contested the poll is expected to win the 163 seats required to form a majority in Iraq’s 325-member parliament on their own, and protracted coalition building is expected.
Meanwhile, insurgents killed five Iraqi soldiers on Wednesday in an attack on a military checkpoint in south Baghdad, the army said.
“Five soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack on a checkpoint in the Radhwaniyah neighbourhood,” said a statement from Baghdad Operations Command, without elaborating.
“The security forces closed off the area and detained 17 suspects,” it added.
Two policemen were shot dead in an attack on a watchtower in the same neighbourhood on Monday.
Violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq since its peak between 2005 and 2007, but attacks remain common in some areas, especially in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul.
—Agencies