Baghdad, March 08: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Shiite leader who helped ease Iraq’s deadly sectarian conflict, emerged today 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 was so far leading in the 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 US-led forces ousted dictator Saddam Hussein 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 secular Iraqiya list, was leading in Sunni areas, said unofficial estimates obtained from officials across the country.
Official final results were not due until the end of March, and after that it will likely take months of horsetrading before a new government is formed as no political bloc is set to emerge dominant from the vote.
Sunday’s vote saw Sunnis return en masse to the ballot box, in stark contrast to their 2005 boycott in protest at the rise to power of the long-oppressed Shiite majority.
Turnout across the country was estimated by election commission officials at over 60 per cent, which showed that most Iraqis were undeterred by an Al-Qaeda threat to kill people who dared to vote.
Turnout was strongest, at more than 70 per cent, in Arbil in the autonomous northern Kurdish region, and in the disputed province of Kirkuk, which is at the centre of a battle for control between Arabs and Kurds.
Baghdad bore the brunt of Sunday’s violence, with around 70 mortars raining down on mostly Sunni areas.
The cities of Fallujah, Baquba, Samarra and several other areas were also hit by mortar rounds or bombs, many of them exploding near polling stations.
A total of 110 people were wounded in the attacks, which came despite the 200,000 police and soldiers deployed in Baghdad and hundreds of thousands more across the country.
An Al-Qaeda group, which sees the election as validating the Shiite-led government
—Agencies