Secular challenger’s bloc beats prime minister’s in Iraq

March 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

A secular challenger’s bloc edged out the prime minister’s in parliamentary elections, according to full vote returns Friday — a significant setback for Nouri al-Maliki, who has been the U.S. partner in Iraq for the past four years.

Al-Maliki vowed to challenge the results, which gave his bloc 89 seats to Ayad Allawi’s 91 in Iraq’s 325-seat parliament. Allawi is a secular Shiite politician and former prime minister who appealed across sectarian lines to minority Sunnis, who have been out of power since the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

The victory will enable Allawi to try to form a coalition government with rival parties.

The next prime minister will lead a government that presumably will be in power when the U.S. completes its scheduled troop withdrawal from Iraq next year.

Regardless of who eventually comes out on top, the results of the March 7 elections suggest that millions of Iraqis are fed up with a political system that revolves around membership in one of the two major Islamic sects.