Iraq: Election results delayed

2005-02-09 21:28

Baghdad - Iraqi officials said on Wednesday that the announcement of final results from landmark national elections will be delayed because the election commission must recount votes from about 300 ballot boxes.

Final results from the January 30 election were to be announced on Thursday. But spokesperson Farid Ayar said the deadline would slip due to the need for a re-count.

"We don't know when this will finish," he said. "This will lead to a little postponement in announcing the results."

Ayar would not say where the 300 ballot boxes had come from.

No new partial results have been releases since Monday for the voting for the 275-member national assembly, 18 provincial councils and a regional parliament for the Kurdish self-governing region in the north.

Partial results released on Monday showed a coalition of Kurdish parties in second place - raising the possibility that Shiites and Kurds might share power and even open the way for a Kurdish president.

Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani already has announced his candidacy for president.

The ticket of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, is in third place among the 111 candidate lists.

A Shiite-dominated ticket endorsed by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with about half the votes, followed by the coalition of Kurdish parties.

If that reflects the final line-up it appears unlikely that Allawi, a secular Shiite who favours strong ties to the United States and a tough stand against the insurgents, could emerge as a compromise choice for prime minister when the new assembly convenes by early March.

- AP