BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s political coalition took an early vote lead Saturday in the election’s all-important battleground of Baghdad, pulling away from its two closest rivals in the latest indication that Iraqis want a moderate government instead of Shiite religious hard-liners leading the postwar nation.
Partial results released by the Independent High Electoral Commission showed the State of Law coalition with about a 60,000-vote edge nationwide over its main moderate challenger, the secular Iraqiya coalition. The Shiite fundamentalist Iraqi National Alliance was in third place.
The partial Baghdad vote was released amid utter disarray in the election commission’s headquarters, where the results were flashed on big-screen TVs but yanked down moments later, only to be released yet again. It was the latest in a series of blunders marring the counting process as results have trickled out slowly.
The chairman of the electoral commission, Faraj al-Haidari, said preliminary nationwide results could be released as early as today — a full week after the vote for a 325-member parliament that will choose a prime minister to form a government that will lead the country as U.S. troops prepare to go home.
Allegations of fraud also have plagued the ballot tally. The electoral commission said more than 2,000 complaints had been received as of Saturday but it gave no specifics, saying only that they would be investigated.
With 18 percent of the ballots counted in the province that includes the capital, al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition had almost 159,000 votes, followed by the Iran-backed Shiite religious grouping the Iraqi National Alliance with about 108,000 and the moderate and secular Iraqiya coalition tallying about 105,000.
Baghdad is the largest prize in the vote, with just under a fifth of the total parliament seats up for grabs.
“We have promised the people of Baghdad and Iraq that the next four years will be the phase of construction and better economy, and we will live up to our promises,” Haider al-Ibadi, a senior State of Law official, said after the capital’s results were announced. “And we will join forces with any other political blocs that are committed to the same agenda.”
So far, al-Maliki’s coalition is leading in five of the 11 provinces where the vote has been partially counted. Iraq has a total of 18 provinces.
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