BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had a narrow lead over rival Shi'ites, partial results in Iraq's tight election race showed on Friday, but a secularist challenger remained far ahead in minority Sunni areas. The race may remain too close to call until initial results are posted for all of Iraq's 18 provinces, including pivotal areas like Baghdad, the ethnically and religiously diverse capital city, suggesting it may be even harder than expected to form a government if no single bloc emerges as a clear victor. Initial results released for seven provinces show Maliki's State of Law bloc slightly ahead of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition of powerful Shi'ite parties, with a gap of about 20,000 votes of nearly 340,000 counted for the two groups. In third place was former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya list, a cross-sectarian, secularist group that is well ahead in two provinces home to large numbers of minority Sunnis. Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission reported partial results from only two provinces on Friday, Maysan and Muthanna, both in the largely Shi'ite south. The picture following Iraq's March 7 parliamentary poll, seven years after Saddam Hussein's ouster, has been muddied by delays from Iraqi electoral officials in giving complete initial results and by mounting accusations of fraud. The confusing aftermath to the vote represents an inauspicious start to what will likely be lengthy, fractious talks to form a government, especially if the vote is as fragmented as early results suggest. Violence may have receded, but it lurks under the surface in a country where sectarian wounds have not healed and major questions about land and oil remain unsettled. Hamdiya al-Husseini, a top IHEC official, dismissed charges of serious fraud coming from Allawi's camp, including reports that ballots were discovered in the garbage and more than 200,000 soldiers' names were missing from voting rosters. "The process of counting and sorting ballots is going well, with the presence of observers from political parties and under international supervision," Husseini said. United Nations officials, who are advising IHEC, downplayed the reports of fraud.
