Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 01/10/09 - 27/03/10

Exxon chief doubts natural gas in cars is viable move

Exxon Mobil Corp. chief E.xecutive Rex Tillerson, it seems, has not joined the T. Boone Pickens army. Pickens has been stumping for the past two years for Americans to shift to natural gas as a vehicle fuel, particularly for heavy duty trucks. He says the move would help wean the U.S. off of foreign oil, support domestic natural gas, cut energy costs and reduce pollution. Tillerson said he doubts natural gas would accomplish all of that. And he isn't just promoting his own petroleum products – he's investing billions of dollars to boost Exxon's natural gas production. He just thinks we'll need more natural gas for power generation, not for cars and trucks. For one thing, refueling stations are costly, as much as $1 million, he said.

"If you're a mom-and-pop retailer, that's almost impossible to do without a lot of help," Tillerson said.

For long-haul trucks, "I can't make the math work on why anybody would do that," he said, since the trucking industry relies on service stations across the country. He conceded that vehicle fleets that use one central refueling station might make sense. Still, Tillerson said, converting an existing vehicle to natural gas is costly. And while a conversion can cut a vehicle's carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 20 percent, Tillerson said the internal combustion gasoline engine has a lot of room to improve on greenhouse gas emissions.

Tillerson shares Pickens' view that natural gas will become more important for Americans. Exxon predicts the U.S. will shift more power generation to natural gas in coming decades. That's why Exxon has offered to buy Fort Worth natural gas producer XTO Energy for $41 billion, including debt assumption. The deal gives Exxon a large stake in natural gas production in North Texas' Barnett Shale and similar shale fields around the country.

Exxon E.xecutives said Thursday they plan to invest $28 billion in capital spending this year, and to continue investing between $25 billion and $30 billion each year through 2014. Exxon invested $27.1 billion in 2009.

Tillerson also said at the analyst meeting he expects Exxon's investment in Iraq to yield double-digit returns, if the company manages the project properly. The company recently signed an agreement to drill for oil in Iraq, and has begun holding planning meetings with its Iraqi counterparts.

"They have been more enthusiastic about our joint work than perhaps we even anticipated," Tillerson said, adding that even though security is improving, it will continue to be a challenge.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.3ce820e.html

OPEC may face Iraq challenge sooner than expected

The storm brewing on OPEC's horizon over future Iraqi oil output could engulf the producer group sooner than it would like. OPEC was unlikely to discuss Iraq at its meeting on March 17 but it may need to do so within a couple of years.

"There's only one issue, but it's a big one. It's a tsunami. Iraq," said Leo Drollas at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.

After years of sanctions and war, Iraq is exempt from the output targets OPEC uses to set supply levels. But as Baghdad embarks on an unprecedented oil industry development, OPEC will at some point need to bring Iraq back into the fold to prevent millions of barrels of new oil supply undoing its work to balance markets. OPEC officials and analysts have said the issue is not urgent, as it could be years before Iraq makes significant increases to current output of around 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Baghdad's failure to reach past ambitious targets has fed the scepticism. The consensus among analysts is that it would take around 5 years for Iraq to boost output by between 1 million bpd and 1.5 million bpd. But output gains could surprise OPEC in their speed.

"You could be looking at 1.5 million barrels in two years," said a senior E.xecutive at one of the oil firms involved in Iraq. "That could make a huge difference to the supply and demand balance. Is there going to be that kind of demand pick up in that timeframe?"

Iraq's deals call for foreign firms to boost output potential to 12 million bpd in seven years, which would leave it snapping at the heels of Saudi Arabia's capacity of 12.5 million bpd. Iraq faces huge political, security and logistical challenges in reaching that target. The first test will be how the new government that emerges from Sunday's elections will handle contracts signed by oil firms.

But assuming the deals survive intact and work can go ahead, Iraq's huge oilfields present little technical challenge to oil majors that have had to push into regions such as deep water and the Arctic to access oil reserves. There is nowhere else on earth where international oil firms have access to such cheap to produce, abundant reserves.

Reaching 12 million bpd in seven years appears improbable, but oil firms believe early gains will be easy. The terms of the contracts Iraq has signed encourage firms to boost output quickly to recover costs. Once firms boost output from producing fields by 10 percent, they start getting paid.

"The way the contract is structured is to incentivise swift progress," said Bill Farren-Price of consultancy Petroleum Policy Intelligence. "I'm fairly optimistic that we'll see Iraqi oil output rising over the next 12 months as Rumaila and other projects get underway."

Iraq has said it expects another 200,000 bpd of oil from fields leased under the new contracts this year. Its biggest producing field, Rumaila, should rise 100,000 bpd by July. BP and CNPC won the contract to boost output at Rumaila, the workhorse of Iraq's oil industry to 2.85 million bpd from 1.07 million bpd.

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/opec-may-face-iraq-challenge-sooner-than-expected_446328.html

Iraq Election May Leave Status of Kirkuk Uncertain

Early election results appear to reflect a hardening of divisions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens in northern Iraq, potentially complicating efforts by the United States and the United Nations to forge a compromise over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk — a prize claimed by both Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region and the central government. According to unofficial results released earlier this week, the Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of the two ruling Kurdish parties, received more than 50 percent of the votes cast in Tamim, the province that includes Kirkuk. Iraq’s electoral commission was scheduled to release partial results over the weekend that were not expected to differ significantly from that outcome.

“This means the majority believe Kirkuk belongs to Kurdistan,” said Khalid Shwani, a Parliament member and a Kurd, who is expected to handily secure a second term.

Yet, the votes of Sunni Arabs and Turkmens — estimated at about 30 percent of the total — went primarily to the Iraqiya slate led nationally by Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister, and particularly for candidates with an uncompromising stand on preventing Kirkuk from joining the Kurdistan region. Mr. Allawi has called for a “special situation” for Kirkuk that would keep it under Baghdad’s control, but give extra powers to a local government equally divided among all groups. But that approach is flatly rejected by the Kurds, who now say their new alliance — which will play a pivotal role in forming a future Iraqi government —has a mandate to expedite Kirkuk’s entry into the Kurdistan region in accordance with the Constitution’s Article 140. Mr. Shwani said that this would be a central demand by Kurds to join any prospective government.

One of his coalition’s priorities would be compensation and restitution of property rights for the tens of thousands of Kurds who were banished under the “Arabization” campaign of the former Baathist government, and who returned to Kirkuk after 2003, Mr. Shwani said. He said that about 100,000 Kurds — Arabs and Turkmens said many more — had returned to Kirkuk since 2003. A building frenzy is under way in Kurdish neighborhoods, and Kurds are expanding into predominantly Arab and Turkmen areas. They now dominate the local government and the police. Mr. Shwani said that at the very least, his coalition would fight to establish ownership rights for squatters, including many Kurds in Kirkuk. The Kurdish coalition and particularly Mr. Shwani’s party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, are under tremendous pressure to deliver on Kirkuk, given the challenge from a new splinter movement called Gorran, meaning “change,” a new Kurdish party that is challenging the entrenched — and it says corrupt — order.

Unofficial results from Dahuk, Erbil and Sulaimaniya — the three provinces that constitute the Kurdistan region — showed the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the lead, followed by Gorran and Mr. Shwani’s party. Mr. Shwani argued that it was not only Kurds in Kirkuk who wanted to be part of the Kurdistan region. That desire was shared by Turkmens and Arabs, he said, who either voted directly for the Kurdish coalition or allied slates.

Officials in the Allawi camp scoffed at that, saying that the former prime minister’s strong showing posed a new counterweight to Kurdish influence. “We have restored equilibrium in Kirkuk,” said Mazen Abdul-Jabbar, who headed Mr. Allawi’s campaign there. Others had stronger words. One of the front-runners on Mr. Allawi’s slate, Arshad al-Salihi, compared the Kurdish presence in Kirkuk to Israeli settlements.

Mr. Salihi, a leader in the Iraqi Turkmen Front, said about Kirkuk joining Iraqi Kurdistan, “They have to kill us first for it to happen.” He said that he was the target of an assassination attempt last month and that American officials persuaded him to play down the episode so as not to provoke his followers. He now wears a bulletproof vest. His sentiments were echoed on the streets. “He will stop Kirkuk from going to Kurdistan because Kirkuk is for Turks,” said Sondous Ahmed, 25, a Turkmen, who had voted with her brother for Mr. Salihi.

In former insurgent strongholds west of the city, where polling places were blown up in the previous elections, Sunni Arabs came out in droves to cast their votes, laughing off threats from a group linked to Al Qaeda. A dozen people interviewed in the central market of Hawija, a town just west of Kirkuk, said they voted for Mr. Allawi’s slate because he was “nonsectarian” and would “keep Iraq united.”

Sheik Hussein al-Jubouri heads Hawija’s district council and commands a 9,000-strong force — part of the American-backed Awakening Councils, which have yet to be integrated into the Iraqi government’s security forces. He backed Mr. Allawi’s slate and held large gatherings before the elections preaching to tribesmen to silence their guns and “give politics a chance.” Mr. Jubouri said that Mr. Allawi’s bloc should insist on another election in Kirkuk, a position seconded by leaders of the influential Obeid tribe in Kirkuk, who also backed Mr. Allawi.

A compromise in last year’s election law allowed voting to take place in Kirkuk with the proviso that a special parliamentary committee would be given a year after the elections to examine irregularities in the voter register.

Sheik Abdullah Sami al-Obeidi, one of the leaders of the Obeid tribe and a member of the Kirkuk provincial council, accused Kurdish parties of issuing fake food ration cards for almost 62,000 families. The cards are used as the basis of the voting register. Mr. Shwani, the Kurdish candidate, denied the accusations, and said his coalition had lodged at least 60 complaints about the voting in Hawija, most of them concerning male heads of households voting on behalf of their wives and children. Tribal leaders in Hawija confirmed that tribal customs prohibited “young women” from venturing out of their homes to vote.

All of this could delay definitive election results in Kirkuk. Turhan Abdul-Rahman, Kirkuk’s deputy police chief, said the situation was highly volatile, given that all political parties were armed. “American forces in Kirkuk are the only counterbalance,” he said. The United States military, which keeps about 5,000 soldiers in Kirkuk, worked to try to guarantee a safe election. American soldiers stood outside polling centers, patrolled the streets and operated joint checkpoints. Even before the vote, American officials warned political leaders to tone down campaigning, which threatened on several occasions to escalate into armed clashes. Col. Larry Swift said the American presence in Kirkuk had a “calming effect” on all political players.

“Impartiality is our biggest asset here,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/wo.../13kirkuk.html

For Iraqi Democracy, Voting Is The Easy Part

Iraq's election, held on Sunday, were a significant success for Iraqi democracy. Despite scattered violence, turnout in Iraq's third-ever national election was 62 percent, compared to only 56.8 percent in the 2008 U.S. election. The UN says there was no widespread fraud. Encouragingly, Sunni Arabs made good on their goal to turn out the vote, demonstrating faith and investment in the Iraqi democracy they once boycotted in vast numbers. But, as in any democracy, getting elected poses an entirely different set of challenges from actual governing. The one is reliant on the other and a feedback loop of failure threatens any democratic government. A failure to govern undermines popular faith in the political system, which makes governance even harder, in turn further eroding the government's popularity and legitimacy. This disintegration is especially possible in Iraq.

As a parliamentary system, Iraq's government requires significant political cooperation to function. Representatives from the multiple-party system must form a majority coalition to appoint a Prime Minister and move forward with the country's business. Given that Iraq's parties reflect ethnic and religious divisions that extend for centuries, forming a coalition requires overcoming some of the Middle East's most entrenched antagonisms. This is rife with all sorts of pitfalls. If, for example, Shia and Kurd parties come together, this risks alienating Sunni Arabs. Iraq's political culture is rife with paranoia and conspiracy theories, so even a legitimate political outcome could be seen as something far more pernicious. It's not difficult to foresee some Iraqis turning away from the democratic experiment in favor of the sectarian militias that tore apart the country in 2006. After all, politically excluded ethnic minorities throughout history have faced a choice between, as Malcolm X put it, "the ballot or the bullet."

Following the decline of violence in 2007, Iraqis came together in an unprecedented and forward-looking willingness to cooperate. But now that the political parties and ethnic populations have tasted power, the allure of self-interested power-seeking risks outshining the need for selfless compromise. Iraq's primary goal after the elections of 2005 was to restore order and peace, a mission that any Iraqi can get behind. But as the country stabilizes, the various factions have more specific, and sometimes conflicting, goals. How to count the population of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, is just one example of a political issue threatening to splinter coalitions. Sunni Arabs are extremely suspicious of Iran's influence in Shia political parties. That suspicion could turn to accusations of illegitimacy in what is likely to be a Shia-dominated government. As American political observers can tell you, even the wildest accusations can prove surprisingly resilient and problematic. Even within the factions, divisions are beginning to show. Among Shia, the violence of the past few years has left lasting resentments. The Kurds, once balanced between two parties, have splintered into three over accusation of corruption.

In the coming months, the newly elected Iraqi parliament will engage in huddled negotiations over determining the contours of the Iraqi government. Cooperation, as any observer of the U.S. Senate can tell you, is crucial to democratic governance, and a break-down can bring everything to a dead halt. For an Iraq desperately in need of strong leadership in enduring security crises, negotiating a looming Iranian neighbor, and distributing oil wealth, success will require much more than high voter turnout.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...sy-part/37424/

Iraqi Elections Results Inconclusive as Shiites Split Vote

Preliminary results in Iraq’s parliamentary election signal a tight race that is unlikely to give any political alliance a majority. With Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc and the rival Iraqi National Alliance splitting most ballots cast by Shiite Muslims, the country’s largest group, no party or coalition is expected to win more than half of the 325 seats in parliament. Both organizations said yesterday that they were trying to join in wider alliances with other blocs to form a majority.

“The vote won’t produce a decisive winner and there will have to be bargaining for a ruling coalition,” Marina Ottaway, an analyst at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a telephone interview.

Competitors are winning in areas of their core sectarian support, according to initial results. Al-Maliki’s bloc is ahead in the southern province of Muthanna and the Iraqi National Alliance is leading in the southeastern province of Maysan, the Independent High Electoral Commission said yesterday. The panel had previously given results for five of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Uncertainty may upset President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce U.S. troop strength in Iraq from 96,000 to 50,000 by August. Violence may increase if Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds aren’t all included in a governing coalition, said Ahmed Ali, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Oil Reserves

Iraq pumped about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day last month, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its 115 billion- barrel reserves are behind only Saudi Arabia and Iran. The U.S., which led a 2003 invasion to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, is scheduled to pull out all its troops by the end of 2011.

Iraqi media have predicted a tight race between the Iraqiya bloc of former premier Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who campaigned on a non-sectarian platform, and al-Maliki, who also presented himself as a national leader. The Iraqi National Alliance has said it wants al-Maliki ousted as prime minister. Al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-dominated State of Law coalition was ahead in Najaf and Babil, two southern Shiite provinces, according to the electoral commission. Allawi’s Iraqiya, which appealed to minority Sunni Muslims, was on top in largely Sunni Diyala and Salahdin. The Kurdistan Alliance was ahead in the Kurdish province of Erbil.

Results from Baghdad, the capital and biggest city, haven’t been announced. More results were to be released today, the electoral commission said.

Coalition Talks

Al-Maliki’s bloc has already opened talks with rival groups to form a ruling coalition, said party official Ali al-Adeed. “We have taken the initiative to start negotiations to form a government,” he said on the organization’s Web site. Ammar al-Hakim, a top official in the Iraqi National Alliance, told Sumaria TV, an Iraqi ********* channel, that he had informed the Kurdistan Alliance of his group’s “commitment in allying with them.” Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoon al-Damluji told the INA-Iraq news agency that Allawi’s bloc “has put no alliance out of bounds.”

It may take months of negotiations to form a coalition government, analysts said. The government that emerges must resolve disputes over sharing oil revenue among regions and whether to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region, as well as cope with hostilities between Shiites and Sunnis. Fraud allegations may increase the risk of post-election violence.

Fraud Complaints

Complaints of fraud complicate the outcome. Even before results were released March 11, Allawi’s alliance expressed doubts about the count.

“There are lots of violations,” Iraqiya member Adnan Janabi told al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language t.elevision channel. “I think they are still going on.”

Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi National Alliance, demanded that the electoral commission display original ballots and tally sheets along with announced results. Interior Minister Jawad al-Boulani, who is running with the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Unity Coalition, told Beirut-based Sumaria TV that ballot boxes “were being transferred in suspicious circumstances.”

A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Said Arikat, had dismissed the fraud charges as unrepresentative. “Politicians can say what they want. We have no reports of problems,” he said by telephone from Baghdad. It’s not clear whether the complaints represent the maneuvers of losers or real concerns that could spread among the public and revive sectarian and ethnic violence.

Sunni groups spearheaded an anti-U.S. insurgency after the 2003 invasion and also fought what was close to a civil war with Shiites. There have also been clashes between rival Shiite groups, and tensions between Arabs and Kurds. The Iraqi army and a Kurdish militia face each other across oil fields in the north, where the Kurds claim territory to add to their autonomous region.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...plit-vote.html

Foggy Bottom's Man in Baghdad
U.S. diplomats are pressing for the victory of the candidate who presided over Iraq at its nadir. Why?

Before Iraq's first election in January 2005, the Bush administration debated whether to support any particular candidate. The Central Intelligence Agency wanted to funnel $20 million to its longtime favorite Ayad Allawi, who was then serving as prime minister in a U.S.-appointed government. But Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's top foreign policy adviser, argued that the U.S. should create a level playing-field and let the chips fall where they may.

Ms. Rice won the day. And so did the United Iraqi Alliance, an alliance of Shiite parties led first by Ibrahim Jaafari and, after subsequent elections that year, by Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's current prime minister.

Mr. Allawi failed to break double-digits in the December 2005 election. He was bitter. "Our adversaries in Iraq are heavily supported financially by other quarters. We are not," he later told CNN's Wolf Blitzer as insurgency raged. He failed to mention the millions of dollars funneled to him by Saddam's former allies in Jordan and other Arab states.

In November 2006 the White House reconsidered its neutrality. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley suggested that "Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action," and proposed the U.S. government provide "monetary support to moderate groups" such as Mr. Allawi's. President Bush refused.

President Obama appears less concerned with neutrality. With Messrs. Allawi and Maliki neck and neck as last Sunday's votes are counted, the administration strives to push Mr. Allawi past the goal post. Newspapers quote embassy and administration officials praising Mr. Allawi and badmouthing his opponents. They may believe Mr. Allawi is what he says he is—a secular liberal interested in clean government and reconciliation. But Iraqis remember his record.

While on Iraq's Governing Council, Mr. Allawi not only appointed his brother-in-law Nouri Badran to be interior minister but also defended Mr. Badran after it emerged that he used ministry money allocated to purchase bomb-disposal equipment to speculate instead on the Iraqi dinar. The money—approximately $10 million—disappeared.

Mr. Allawi received his second chance to lead upon the dissolution of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Its administrator, Paul Bremer, heeding the advice of both the State Department and the CIA, appointed Mr. Allawi interim prime minister—a perch from which he ran Iraq for almost a year.

During this period Iraq reached its nadir. Insurgency flourished, sectarian tension grew, and corruption exploded. No longer did the disappearance of $10 million make headlines. Mr. Allawi's defense minister, Hazem al-Shalaan, like Mr. Allawi a former Baathist whose anti-Iran rhetoric pleased the U.S., oversaw the waste of approximately $1 billion (yes, billion) on shady and worthless contracts. That money that could have been crucial to fight terrorists as insurgency spread.

Mr. Allawi's suspicion of Iran is well-founded, and he deserves praise for facing down fireb.rand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in November 2004. But he all but laid a welcome mat for other terrorists. He appointed unrepentant Baathists to sensitive security posts, exa.cerbating both insurgency and sectarian violence. He courted Syria which, as documents captured in in 2007 in Sinjar (an Iraqi town near the Syrian border) show, was a waypoint for foreign fighters and suicide bombers responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis. Mr. Allawi has learned no lesson: Three days before this month's elections he met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. "Syrian-Iraqi relations are close and must remain like this," Mr. Allawi told Syrian t.elevision.

While Iraqis brave bombs and bullets to hold leaders to account and participate in democracy, a dangerous cocktail of anti-Shiite bias and dictator chic permeates Washington's foreign-policy elite. This may make Mr. Allawi attractive in Foggy Bottom and Langley, but not to most Iraqis. Strongmen—including Saddam—drove Iraq into ruin and espoused ethnic and sectarian supremacy.

Iran's influence is pernicious, but Iraqi Shiites are not Iranian pawns. It was Shiite conscripts, not Baathist elites, who manned Iraq's trenches during the nearly decade-long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Most Iraqis, regardless of religion, resent Iran. But as the Pentagon and U.S. Embassy promote Mr. Allawi, in part because he acquiesces to the reintegration of Baathist insurgents, they validate Iranian rhetoric, which argues the Shiites require Tehran for protection.

History matters. In January, I met with one grand ayatollah and representatives of two others in Najaf. Each castigated Iran but said they could neither forgive nor forget 1991, when the elder Bush abandoned Iraq's Shiite uprising to Saddam's helicopter gunships. No Iraqi candidate is perfect, but it's puzzling that the U.S. has thrown so much weight behind one with ties to the country's Baathist past.

Mr. Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was a governance adviser in the Coalition Provisional Authority.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopOpinion

Start counting Iraqis of overseas votes in 10 countries and six other starts on Saturday

Announced that the Electoral Commission for elections, Friday, from start sorting the votes in a number of Arab and foreign countries, while confirming that 6 other states postponed the vote counting process until Saturday.

A member of the Board of Commissioners and Chairman of the entry in the Office of Saad al-Rawi operations of counting and sorting is nearing completion in 10 countries, a United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

The narrator states that the other 6 will begin Saturday after a screening of the votes have, indicating that these countries are Syria, Sweden, the United States, Britain, Canada, and Lebanon.

http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....990&LinkID=151

Arab League delegation is still watching very carefully stages of counting & sorting

The Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States for Information and Communication Affairs, President of the Arab League delegation to monitor the Iraqi elections, to continue oversight of the delegation of counting and sorting very carefully.

In a statement that the future of Ambassador Mohamed the newspaper received a copy of Electronic Iraq:

"For the sake of accuracy in sentencing, and to maintain the credibility of the League of Arab States, the delegation is still watching very carefully stages of counting and sorting, and by doing daily visits to an abrupt Center for data entry, and talk with representatives of political entities and observers of the NGOs and international organizations and civil society organizations, and a number of meetings with these parties, as it was monitoring the response from all directions."

He added: "The assessment of the Arab League, as the stands at the same distance from all political entities, religious groups and ethnicities, should be accurate and a true reflection of what is happening, so it will be announced at the time of the latest in a statement, the reality of this election process.

http://iraqfuturemedia.com/news.php?action=view&id=2235

Maliki leads key Baghdad vote count

Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki's bid to retain his job gained steam on Saturday, as early results crucially put him ahead in Baghdad, while rival blocs began jostling over the formation of a government. Though the preliminary figures represent less than one-third of all votes cast, they have put Maliki firmly in pole position in the race for the top job, with only ex-premier Iyad Allawi having emerged as a potential rival.

The results from Iraq's second parliamentary election since Saddam Hussein's ouster seven years ago, which sparked widespread sectarian bloodshed, come less than six months ahead of a dramatic US military downsizing which will see all American combat troops leave the country by the end of August.

Analysts said, however, that Maliki could be blocked in his bid to hold onto office even if his State of Law Alliance was the biggest single party in parliament, as other groups could manoeuvre to form a government without him. With 18 percent of ballots counted in Baghdad, Maliki's State of Law Alliance was comfortably ahead with around 150,000 votes, followed by the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition led by Shiite religious parties, with 108,000. Allawi's secular Iraqiya bloc was third on 105,000. Baghdad and its seven million residents account for 70 parliamentary seats, or more than one-fifth of the 325-member Council of Representatives, making it a crucial win for any would-be government. News of Maliki's lead in Baghdad came shortly after a senior member of his coalition said State of Law had formed a committee to begin negotiating with rival blocs to hammer out a government.

"The committee met with representatives of four political entities that made progress in the elections," Abbas al-Bayati, a candidate for the coalition, told AFP, but he declined to say with which blocs the talks were held.

But Baghdad University professor Hamid Fadhel said that even if Maliki's group emerged as the biggest party in parliament, other groups could still shut him out and manage to form a government.

"There exists a desire to form an alliance between the INA and the Kurds, possibly also with Allawi," he told AFP. "They have all refused a long time to really see Maliki as the Prime Minister."

Underscoring Fadhel's analysis, Allawi and Iraq's Sunni Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi were due to arrive in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, on Saturday to meet with regional president Massud Barzani. Barzani's office said he and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, also met with Shiite Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi, an INA candidate, on Friday.
................................

Complete results are expected on March 18 and the final ones -- after any appeals are dealt with -- will likely come at the end of the month.
Iraqiya has alleged "flagrant fraud" took place during the election, but those complaints were described as "exaggerated" by State of Law. An IHEC official has said the claims of fraud were either politically motivated or fuelled by a misunderstanding of the counting procedures, but said they would nevertheless be investigated.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news...0313-q5da.html

UN: No sign of fraud, the Iraqi elections

The United Nations said it did not see the existence of fraud that could affect the outcome of the Iraqi elections, but was still awaiting details of the hundreds of complaints by political parties, with a large UN official said he had not seen any process manipulation, as quoted by the Christian Science Monitor.

The newspaper said the UN envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, said in his first meeting held after the historic elections in Iraq on Sunday, "It is important to distinguish between individual issues by politicians and the nature of structural issues that may affect the outcome of the election."

Melkert said, "Even now there is no indication that there is something of a pattern of the last of these issues (which affect the outcome of the elections)."

The paper says that "until now has not only produce a fraction of the results of Iraq's 18 provinces vote, but a number of election observers expect a very tight race between the coalition led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the coalition of secular Shi'ite Iyad Allawi, who appointed as the first prime minister of Iraq after the fall of Saddam."

The newspaper said that "Allawi and other political leaders have made a barrage of complaints from the public claim presented to the voters, intimidation, fraud, ballot boxes, and other forms of fraud, saying they had reduced their support."

But Melkert told the newspaper that "there are approximately 100 lawyers, backed by the United Nations look into complaints ranged from the loss of records of the names of voters and manipulation of data in polling stations."

The newspaper said that "the United Nations has sent teams to investigate complaints Bninoy and Kirkuk, both sensitive areas of the political side, where there was a series of complaints regarding intimidation of voters and vote-rigging."

A senior official at the United Nations on condition of anonymity for fear of being seen as the bleaching of complaints, "I have not seen so far and a pattern of widespread fraud," adding, "What I see is that in some places, there have been some things can be considered at this time as a relatively isolated, "adding that" the number of such incidents could be dozens of 50000 total voting station."

He said the UN official "because of our interest in any complaint, we send the difference for the things in place, and look at the warehouses, and compare all the data that you need to compare."

The newspaper said that "counting nearly 12 million votes took place more slowly than expected, the fuel also has a lot of Iraqis are theories about manipulation process of counting. It is expected to be completed by the results of parliamentary elections for all governorates in the next few days."

The paper points out that "Iraqi and international observers at the headquarters of the Electoral Commission's heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, watching the computer screens display the same results entered by dozens of poll workers, between 1000 and check the figures again by the political parties and compare them to those attained by way of their monitors in the polling stations."

The newspaper said that "despite or perhaps because of safety tests, the expulsion of officials in the Office of the elections this week, six members of the data processing after the discovery of the problems of the introduction of numbers," pointing to "the reporting of the news was widely seen as connected to fraud, but sources in the United Nations said on condition of anonymity, said: Non-technical competence was behind the expulsion of those employees it seems. "

Melkert said "I know that this process is difficult because it requires patience, but I think that we should ask for this patience, because what we are witnessing a unique process in the truth."

Melkert stressed that "This is the second election of a parliamentary mandate, but the first time in which the entire Iraqi hands around," expressing his belief that the Iraqis "were able to manage."

http://radionawa.com/ar/NewsDetailN....180&LinkID=158