Iraqi Electoral Body Rejects Calls for Vote Recount

2010-03-21 19:36:17 Xinhua Web Editor: Zhang Xu

The Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission (IHEC) rejected on Sunday the calls by top Iraqi officials to recount votes of the country's March 7 elections.

"There is no need to recount the votes because we provided all the political entities with copies of the results of the polling station (across the country)," IHEC chief Faraj al-Haidari was quoted as saying by the official television of Iraqia.

Haidari said he was "astonished" by the calls for manual recount, which he said would take a long time.

However, Haidari said his commission is ready to recount the votes of any polling center that the political entities have doubts or they think there are errors.

Haidari's comments came after the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called Sunday the country's electoral commission to recount the vote of the country's March 7 elections after latest partial preliminary results showed a rival secular politician was leading the race.

The calls of the two top leaders came after the IHEC released Saturday 92 percent of the country's initial results of parliamentary elections, showing Maliki's rival, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqia bloc collected 2,543, 632 votes and Maliki's State of Law coalition garnered 2,535,704.

Allawi also pulled ahead in Kirkuk province, where he was close to the rival Kurdish bloc. The oil-rich province of Kirkuk is sensitive, since the Kurds claimed the province is a Kurdish land and want to annex it to their semi-autonomous region.

On March 7, some 62.4 percent of more than 18 million eligible voters turned out in some 8,920 polling centers across the country to vote for the 325-seat Iraqi Council of Representatives out of some 6,300 candidates.

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