BAGHDAD/LONDON – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a nationwide recount of votes from Iraq's March 7 parliamentary election, warning the country could return to violence if the demand was not met. The call came after new results from the electoral commission on Saturday showed secularist challenger Iyad Allawi edging ahead of Maliki's bloc by about 8,000 votes with about 93 per cent of the counting complete. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, also issued a statement yesterday asking the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) for a recount in some provinces. The tight race portends weeks or months of difficult negotiations ahead to form a new government, raising the prospect of a political vacuum that could set back Iraq's fragile security gains. "There are demands from several political blocs to manually recount the votes and to protect the democratic experience and preserve the credibility of the political process," said Maliki, a Shi'ite who won over many Iraqis with his nationalist rhetoric and steps to crush sectarian violence. "I call on the High Electoral Commission to respond immediately to the demands of those blocs to preserve the political stability and prevent the security situation from deteriorating and avoid the return of violence," he added in a statement issued late on Saturday. Iraq's divided vote is a reminder of the country's precarious democracy as it emerges from the shadow of war and years of sectarian slaughter unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Violence fell sharply over the past two years but a tenacious insurgency keeps Iraq under siege as US troops prepare to withdraw by 2012. Iraq's electoral commission rejected a call by al-Maliki for a manual recount of votes cast in the country's March 7 polls, commission chief Faraj al-Haidari told reporters yesterday. "We have provided all political entities with CDs with the results of counting at the political centres, after thorough checks on our part," Haidari said, adding that a manual recount would take "too long." Meanwhile, a media report said yesterday that Britain's military intelligence ran a secret torture unit in Iraq which "reported directly to London" and authorised harsh treatment of detainees. In fact, prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by military intelligence officers who were answerable only "directly to London", ‘The Independent' reported, citing documents. The revelations, about the use of illegal "coercive techniques" in Iraq by Joint Forward Interrogation Team, came during the inquiry into Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel worker who was beaten to death in the custody of British troops in 2003. In a statement to the inquiry commission, Colonel Christopher Vernon said he raised concerns after seeing 30 to 40 prisoners in a kneeling position with sacks over their heads and those in charge were from the army's intelligence headquarters, the report said.
