Baghdad, March 08: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Shiite leader who helped ease Iraq’s deadly sectarian conflict, emerged Monday as a front-runner after an election seen as a test of the nation’s young democracy.
The key estimates from the Baghdad region, which could swing the results of Sunday’s poll, were not yet available but local officials said Maliki’s political bloc was so far leading in nine of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
Millions voted, braving rocket, mortar and bomb attacks that killed 38 people to cast their ballots in the second parliamentary election since the US-led invasion in 2003.
US President Barack Obama, who has promised to withdraw all US troops from Iraq by the end of next year, paid tribute to “the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people who once again defied threats to advance their democracy.”
Maliki’s State of Law Alliance was ahead in Shiite regions while Iyad Allawi, an ex-premier who heads the Iraqiya list, was leading in Sunni areas, said unofficial estimates obtained from officials across the country.
Official final results are not due until the end of March and, after that, it is likely to take months of horsetrading before a new government is formed as no political bloc is set to emerge dominant from the vote.
But early indications were looking good for Maliki.
He was appointed prime minister in 2005 as a compromise candidate.
Maliki played down his party’s Shiite religious roots in his campaign for this election and sought to portray himself as the leader who restored security to Iraq, a claim dented by a series of bombings in Baghdad in recent days.
Maliki’s main challenger, according to the initial estimates, is Allawi, whose Iraqiya is a mostly Shiite slate that has campaigned on a nationalist ticket.
The other leading list is the Iraq National Alliance, which is dominated by two Shiite religious parties, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the movement loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who led two armed uprisings against US-led troops.
It also includes former deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi.
Sunday’s vote saw Sunnis return to the ballot box in large numbers, in stark contrast to their 2005 boycott in protest at the US occupation.
Turnout was strongest, at more than 70 percent, in Arbil in the autonomous Kurdish region in the north, and in the disputed oil province of Kirkuk, which is at the centre of a battle for control between Arabs and Kurds.
—Agencies