Iraq recount affirms win for Sunni-backed bloc

BAGHDAD - Iraq's electoral commission affirmed yesterday the narrow victory of a Sunni-backed bloc in the March vote after a partial recount undercut the Shia prime minister's claims of fraud in the tally.

The result was a setback for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who came in second to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi by a small margin. But his alliance with another Shia bloc still gives him a strong chance of holding on to power for another four years.

"I hope that all political blocs are satisfied now that the electoral process was honest and all allegations of fraud and forgery were totally incorrect," electoral commission spokesman Qassim al-Abboudi told reporters after the results of a recount of votes for the capital, Baghdad, were announced.

The recount as well as other challenges to the March 7 election result have prevented the seating of the new 325-member parliament. It also raised fears that the drawn-out political bickering will give rise to new violence as insurgents try to exploit the political vacuum as U.S. troops prepare to leave.

Hadi Jalo, a political analyst in Baghdad, said al-Maliki's goal in demanding the recount was not to change the total, but to stall so he could work out an agreement with his Shia allies to stay in power and sideline Allawi.

Al-Maliki's State of Law alliance lost the election, with 89 seats to 91 for the bloc headed by Allawi, a secular Shia supported by the country's minority Sunni community. But neither coalition won the 163 seats required to govern outright.

Baghdad province accounts for so many parliament seats that a significant change in the vote tally could have tilted the overall results in al-Maliki's favor.

The results were a setback for al-Maliki, but since they did not hand Allawi the mandate to form the next government, al-Maliki now appears to be in an even better position than he was roughly two weeks ago when the recount began.