Tight race prompts warnings of violence

March 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

Iraqi election results today likely will show a virtual tie between the two top vote-getting blocs led by the prime minister and his chief rival, a political equation that could add up to bitter political wrangling and risk re-igniting violence.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who enjoys wide support with the Shiite majority, is neck-and-neck with former prime minister Ayad Allawi, who’s popular with Iraq’s Sunni minority.

If neither camp emerges with a clear mandate to lead Iraq’s fragile democracy, many fear that a drawn-out political debate to form a government could spill over into violence and complicate American efforts to speed up troop withdrawals in the coming months.

The country’s interior minister, himself a candidate, Thursday called on Iraq’s electoral commission to hold off releasing the tally today because he fears rivalries among the various political blocs could erupt into violence. That concern also has been echoed by many members of al- Maliki’s State of Law coalition, who say they fear the country’s Shiite majority could react in outrage if they feel the results aren’t what they expect.

Such pronouncements likely reflect a great deal of political posturing. Election officials have firmly dismissed calls for a delay or a recount in a vote-tallying process that has dragged on for nearly three weeks since Iraqis went to the polls March 7.

Even so, many here fear a return to violence between the country’s Sunni and Shiite factions amid the horse-trading that will ramp up in earnest once all results are out.

Al-Maliki’s coalition has drawn much of its support from Iraq’s Shiite majority, and his attempts to appeal to Sunnis were undercut by his support for a ban on many Sunni candidates for purported ties to the previous regime.

The Sunnis largely threw their support behind Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, which, though headed by a Shiite, has billed itself as secular.

Iraq’s Kurdish faction has long seen itself as a key electoral kingmaker, though followers of radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also could play a pivotal role after garnering a significant number of seats.