The recount of Baghdad votes, begun on Monday, is being monitored by EU and UN observers May 3, 2010
Baghdad manual vote recount begins
Iraq's election commission has begun manually recounting around 2.5 million ballots cast in Baghdad during the country's parliamentary election almost two months ago.
Officials said on Monday that the process could take between two to three weeks.
"We will count 600 boxes today," Qassim al-Abbudi, an official with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), said.
Baghdad province accounts for about a fifth of parliament's 325 seats. Al-Maliki had challenged results in four other provinces as well, but had those requests denied.
The recount was being carried out inside the green zone under the supervision of observers from the UN and the European Union.
Iraq's March 7 parliamentary poll produced no clear winner, with Allawi's Iraqiya coalition winning the highest number of seats, 91, and al-Maliki's State of Law bloc coming a close second, with 89 seats.
A political bloc needs 163 seats in parliament in order to form a government.
However, coalition-building talks between the major blocs and smaller parties in order to achieve that number appear to have stalled.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2010/05/20105371714653272.html
Iraq's election commission has begun manually recounting around 2.5 million ballots cast in Baghdad during the country's parliamentary election almost two months ago.
Officials said on Monday that the process could take between two to three weeks.
"We will count 600 boxes today," Qassim al-Abbudi, an official with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), said.
Baghdad province accounts for about a fifth of parliament's 325 seats. Al-Maliki had challenged results in four other provinces as well, but had those requests denied.
The recount was being carried out inside the green zone under the supervision of observers from the UN and the European Union.
Iraq's March 7 parliamentary poll produced no clear winner, with Allawi's Iraqiya coalition winning the highest number of seats, 91, and al-Maliki's State of Law bloc coming a close second, with 89 seats.
A political bloc needs 163 seats in parliament in order to form a government.
However, coalition-building talks between the major blocs and smaller parties in order to achieve that number appear to have stalled.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2010/05/20105371714653272.html
and ...
Baghdad, 3 May
(AKI) - Iraqi officials on Monday began a manual recount of 2.5 million votes cast in its national parliamentary election in Baghdad nearly two months ago. No clear winner emerged from the 7 March election and negotiations have so far failed to produce a new government.
Political factions have argued over the results which showed a bloc led by current prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki two seats short of a rival coalition led by a secular Shia and heavily backed by Sunni Arabs.
Since no one won an outright majority in the 325-seat legislature, all of Iraq's parties have been involved in intense talks to create a majority.
Al-Maliki called for the recount in Baghdad and the surrounding province, saying the electronic counting system was flawed.
Al-Maliki's rival Iyad Allawi and his Iraqiyya bloc won the election, but neither group won a large enough majority to form a government.
Sectarian tensions have recently deteriorated in the country amid continuing political uncertainty and there has been a surge in violence.
The recount focuses on 68 seats and could seriously affect the result.
The recount of the Baghdad ballots could take 11 or 12 days, an electoral commission official said.
Both Allawi and Al-Maliki's gains fell well short of the 163 seats needed to form a government, forcing coalitions to proceed with difficult negotiations in a bid to form a parliamentary majority.
A review panel ordered the manual recount after a complaint from Al-Maliki's bloc alleging fraud in the initial tally of ballots in Baghdad, which holds more than a fifth of the seats in parliament.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=3.1.335462509
