Groups demand review of complaints from election

On representative called the Dec. 15 process fraudulent.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Sunni Arab and secular Shiite factions demanded Thursday that an international body review complaints about voting fraud in last week's elections and threatened to boycott the new legislature. But the United Nations rejected the idea.
"The U.N. is not going to conduct an independent review of the election results," U.N. associate spokesman Robert Sullivan said in New York.
The demand for a review came two days after preliminary returns indicated the current governing group, the Shiite-religiously-oriented United Iraqi Alliance, was getting bigger-than-expected majorities in Baghdad, which has large numbers of Shiites and Sunnis.
Although final results are not expected until January, secular Shiites and Sunni Arabs were alarmed. The formerly dominant Sunni minority, in particular, fears being marginalized by the Shiite majority, which was oppressed during Saddam Hussein's reign.
But the criticisms of the election could also be part of jockeying for position by both Sunnis and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, before negotiations begin on forming a new coalition government. No group is expected to win a majority of the legislature's 275 seats.
A representative for Allawi described the Dec. 15 vote as fraudulent and called the elected lawmakers illegitimate.
Thirty-five political groups that competed in the vote issued a statement calling for the disbandment of the electoral commission, known as the IECI, because of alleged problems with the balloting.
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The groups said the hundreds of complaints about fraud and intimidation of voters should be reviewed by international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Arab League.
"We hold the IECI responsible for all the violations which took place during the elections and demand that it be dissolved and a suitable alternative to be found," said the statement, read by Ali al-Timimi, head of a secular Shiite candidate grouping, the Hilla al-Fayha List.
He added that "if this is not achieved, then we will have no choice but to refuse the results and boycott the new parliament."
Jalal Talabani, the country's Kurdish president, met with representatives of the main Sunni Arab coalition, the Iraqi Accordance Front, in an effort to defuse the crisis.
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