Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday failed to grasp first place in Iraq’s parliamentary election from his arch-rival Iyad Allawi after a recount confirmed there was no fraud in the March 7 ballot.
Mr Maliki, the incumbent Shia Premier, had alleged that he lost thousands of votes, but election commission officials told AFP that a 12-day manual count of ballots cast in Baghdad had shown no change from the original results.
The recount leaves the secular Iraqiya bloc of Mr Allawi, himself a former Shia Premier, in the lead, but Mr Maliki is in pole position to retain the top job after having formed a post-election coalition of Shia groups.
Mr Maliki’s new movement needed four extra seats to gain a parliamentary majority but electoral official Saad al-Rawi said there was “no change in the number of seats for any coalition in Baghdad, and in all of Iraq.”
The conclusion of the Baghdad recount — Iraq’s biggest province in which 68 seats were at stake — removes a major hurdle to the country forming its next government and paves the way to choosing its new leaders.