Iraq elections: Moderate PM Maliki ahead of rivals

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 post-war nation, reports from Baghdad said.

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 of 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, will be known shortly.

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.

- Asian Tribune -